Charli XCX and the Brutal Expression of Female Pain: What’s Really Behind brat

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You’ve seen it — everyone has: that acidic, loud, almost toxic neon green screaming from the screen. That’s brat, Charli XCX’s latest masterpiece.

This British pop icon’s new album already belongs to an entire generation. But it goes far beyond just celebrating parties, rave culture, and chaotic living. brat is a confessional letter — a catharsis that lays bare the brutal pain of the social roles women are expected to perform: as friends, daughters, partners, icons — or simply “just being a girl,” a phrase deeply rooted in Gen-Z culture.

Charli brings her Sweat Tour with Troye Sivan to Primavera Sound 2025 in Barcelona (which LOS40 will be covering live), in front of a crowd hungry for brat. “A real celebration of friendship,” the singer has said. But behind the hyperpop, techno, and UK garage beats, there’s a lot of truth.

The Raw Power of brat

The media ran with the brattiest version of brat. Charli has redefined the term, transforming her artistry, image, and stage persona. She leans into chaos, intensity, confusion, fun. To think of her is to see strobe lights flashing in a club.

But what makes this album culturally significant — what has turned it into a generational artifact — is the B-side beneath the satire: chronic sadness, uncertainty, anxiety, jealousy, rage, narcissism… all told from the perspective of a woman who’s not received by the world as a rockstar, but instead through the lens of societal expectations that define her from the start.

brat as a Survival Diary for Girls

One of the biggest challenges art faces today is how disconnected it can feel from the realities its audiences live. In a world marked by polarization, inequality, precariousness, conflict, and crisis, it’s rare for pop icons to reflect those shared experiences.

That’s where brat becomes especially relevant — because it puts on the table what defines Gen Z: unfiltered honesty, the raw expression of pain, anxiety, insecurity; the fractured sense of identity shaped by social media; the push and pull of traditional femininity, confronting imposed roles with a mix of rebellion and vulnerability; the rejection of polish and perfection in favor of the raw and imperfect; and an awareness of emotional and social precarity that results in existential exhaustion and a need for uncensored emotional expression.

In this way, brat becomes a sonic mirror that captures the complexities and tensions faced by both artists and the youth who listen to them.

Each song feels like a manifesto in itself — even the ones that seem more surface-level — because noise, chaos, and partying are also valid expressions of selfhood.

“Girl, so confusing” might be the most gut-punching moment on brat, a tender yet uncomfortable depiction of female rivalry and insecurity — sung with Lorde, no less, the artist most often set up as Charli’s career rival. “I don’t know if you like me / Sometimes I think you hate me / Sometimes I think I hate you / Maybe you just want to be me… / You and me, the same side of the coin / The industry loves to spend it,” they sing together. The track also examines what it means to exist as a woman from a young age: “You walk like a slut — someone told me that when I was 10. And it’s just self-defense… until you build a weapon.”

From Catharsis to Chaos

The album gives space to the emotional terrain traditionally linked with women. “Sympathy is a Knife” explores jealousy, self-esteem, and validation; “Von Dutch” throws insecurity behind a defensive, egotistical mask — also echoed in “360.” “I Might Say Something Stupid” delves into self-censorship and social anxiety.

Even “Apple,” the viral dance anthem, touches on family trauma — as Charli herself has confirmed: “I think the apple is rotten to the core, from everything passed down, from all the apples before. I slice the apple into perfect lines and what I see is something scary. It makes me want to just drive away.”

A core theme of brat is the party as a space of identity — and everything that entails, including drug use — a place where people both build and destroy themselves. You can be whoever you want to be at the party… but maybe you are that person less and less, or everything just feels increasingly complicated. Aesthetically and aspirationally, though, it still works. This is clear in tracks like “365” or “Club Classics.” The emotional hangover of that world is reflected in “Everything Is Romantic” or “party 4 u,” a track from before brat that Charli has brought back with a new music video.

The Brutality of brat — in Sound and Soul

What makes brat brutal isn’t just the lyrics — it’s the sound. Fast beats, explosive bass, flashing lights. The perfect backdrop for Charli to scream and howl on stage like she’s possessed. It’s the most brat thing about brat: an emotional detonation that doesn’t separate the intimate from the collective. Because what breaks inside us… shakes the world outside too.