Diary 💗 Chappell, Charli, and the joy of being wrong

The unexpected pleasures of embracing Brat summer and girl pop

🏆 A top-read post

I wasn’t expecting to like it

“You’re gonna hate it.” My girlfriend Sara was confident I wouldn’t be a Brat fan.

I was a little self-conscious about what that meant about me. After all, a lot of people I love, love Brat.

But I knew what she was getting at.

You see, I almost never listen to pop music (or contemporary music for that matter). It’s not so much a conscious choice as a random consequence of my inclination for 60s-80s rock, soul, and funk.

When I do listen to pop, it’s usually from my childhood. Once or twice a year I’ll get out of bed and have an out of the blue craving for “The Ketchup Song” or “Boom Boom Boom" that can only be satisfied by blasting it loudly. The 6-year-old in me pops in for a couple hours and takes over my ears.

But since Brat doesn’t come with the advantage of being soaked in nostalgia, I didn’t have my hopes up when I pressed play on the first track, “360.”

The first few seconds filled my ears with digital bubbles. It sounds the way you’d imagine music from the future would sound: dripping in electricity.

Brat was a bite of a new food, juicy and unfamiliar. I needed another taste before I could decide if I liked it. My inner critic was reporting for duty.

Charli put me in my place real quick,

“I don’t fucking care what you think.”

It made me smile. I suddenly understood why people like her.

She didn’t care what I thought, which is exactly what made me like her music. Brat is fun, validating, liberating, punk even.

Its defiance is integrated into the album’s DNA in a way that feels exhilaratingly sure of oneself. I quickly fell in love with Charli’s this-isn’t-meant-to-please-everyone boldness — it reminded me of Richard Hell or Mary from 1993’s Party Girl (a character Charli has mentioned as an inspiration for this record).