As someone who existed outside the mainstream for much of her early career, Charli xcx has come a long way. The British popstar who was first noticed via her Myspace page is not only responsible for the meme of the summer, she has even become an influential factor in the turbulent presidential elections across the Atlantic.
“Can’t believe Charli xcx is successfully doing foreign intervention in a US election as an album marketing tactic,” one fan posted on X after Kamala Harris’s campaign fully embraced the singer’s endorsement.
When Charli wrote that “kamala IS brat,” she immediately transformed a run-of-the-mill politician in a steamed pant suit into a messy internet It-girlie. Because, as we all know by now, brat – inspired by Charli’s most recent album – is more than a name, it’s a lifestyle. It is noughties excess, rave culture. It’s “a pack of cigs, a Bic lighter, a strappy white top with no bra”. It’s quintessentially cool.
The 31-year-old singer has generated countless headlines and trend pieces after the release of her sixth studio album in June, but she’s been working in the industry for more than 15 years now. Known to fans for her avant garde boundary pushing pop, for a long time she was seen as an artist whose “critical plaudits outweighed her commercial success”.
Born Charlotte Emma Aitchison in Cambridge in 1992 (and raised in Essex), the musician is the only child of the nurse and flight attendant Shameera and the entrepreneur and show booker Jon Aitchison. Her father was Scottish and her mother was born into a Gujarati Indian family in Uganda.
Aitchison’s musical journey began at the age of 14, when she persuaded her parents to grant her a loan to record her first album, 14. In early 2008 began posting songs from it to her Myspace page, which caught the attention of a promoter who invited her to perform at warehouse raves and parties in east London. Her stage name, Charli xcx, was an ode to her MSN Messenger display name when she was younger – an early indicator of her ability to infuse her brand with web culture.
That first album remained unreleased but it did earn Aitchison a deal with Asylum, a subsidiary of the major label Atlantic, in 2010, which set the ball rolling for her career.
Initially the singer struggled to create songs she was happy with, and she’s since described herself as being “lost” during that period. In an interview with the Guardian, she said: “I was still in school, I’d just come out of this weird rave scene, and I wasn’t really sure what to make of that. And when I got signed I hated pop music; I wanted to make bad rap music. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know what I liked.”
It wasn’t until a songwriting trip to LA and a session with Haim and the Solange collaborator Ariel Rechtshaid that things began to click. Aitchison’s first major breakthrough wasn’t as a solo artist but as a songwriter and collaborator for Swedish duo Icona Pop and their shouty banger, I Love It – which hit number 1 in the UK in 2013.
That led to demands for a repeat performance which she provided with Fancy, another collaboration, this time with Iggy Azalea. The song was one of the bestselling singles of 2014 and was nominated for two Grammy Awards. Soon after, she contributed the song “Boom Clap” to the soundtrack of the film The Fault in Our Stars, which peaked at number six in the UK.
Meanwhile, Aitchison’s debut album True Romance, was released in 2013. While it was received well by music critics it fell short commercially, and what followed was burn out and disillusionment with the industry.
Critics were saying her early output sounded “like an imminent star steadily staking a claim to her own turf”, but in reality Aitchison was struggling to create the kind of music she wanted to – perhaps not surprising for someone who was drawing influences from artists as disparate as Gwen Stefani and the Cure.
She ended up going to Sweden, isolating herself from her record label, and making a punk-inspired album over a month – something she eventually scrapped for a more “pop-oriented” record which she told DIY magazine was intended to help girls feel “a sense of empowerment”. “I remember when I first began writing it I wanted to write an album that I would’ve been obsessed with when I was 14.”
That album, called Sucker, was officially released in February 2015 in Europe and became her solo breakthrough, reaching number 15 on the UK Albums Chart. The album’s third single, “Doing It”, featuring fellow British singer Rita Ora, peaked at number 8 on the UK singles chart.
Aitchison continued to make a name for herself, setting up an experimental pop record label, Vroom Vroom Recordings, in 2016, and hosting her own fortnightly show on Beats 1. After that followed the albums Charli (2019), How I’m Feeling Now (2020), Crash (2022), and eventually Brat (2024). She has collaborated with numerous stars including Raye, Troye Sivan, MØ, Lizzo, and Christine and the Queens.
By the time she played her second Boiler Room set, in Brooklyn in early 2024, titled PARTYGIRL, Aitchison received about 40,000 RSVPs. Her set featured a host of performances and special appearances that flooded social media, a sign of her exponential growth and appeal. After its release, Brat quickly received universal critical acclaim – becoming one of Metacritic’s top 25 highest-rated albums of all time. At Glastonbury this year, some fans reported queues “as long as entry to Glastonbury itself” before the Silver Hayes field was closed off before her DJ set at the Levels Stage on Friday night.
Lyrically, Aitchison’s songs deal with subjects such as hedonism and love. Her music has been called dark wave, witch house, gothic pop, synth pop, pop punk, avant-pop, and much more, but she’s stated she does “not identify with music genres”.
She has long expressed her admiration for the 1990s’ pop culture and cited the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Avril Lavigne, and the fictional characters Cher Horowitz, Wednesday Addams and Nancy Downs as inspirations for her style – which she has described as “90s schoolgirl”. And for now, this 90s schoolgirl wields a lot of power.