Music
Review
Charli XCX proves brat summer is alive and well at Parklife
The singer takes to the Valley stage to remind us that brat summer round two is underway
Charli XCX is glad that none of us are ready to let go of brat – because she isn’t either.
“You know last year it was brat summer?” she asks, in a nonchalant Essex accent, walking the length of the Valley stage at Parklife. “Is it gonna happen again this year, do you think?” No one is in doubt. “Okay, cool,” she says. “I’ll remember that you said that.”
She’s referring, of course, to the summer 2024 mania for her sixth studio album, which spawned several viral hits and high-profile collaborations with the likes of Lorde and Billie Eilish – both have their remixes played in Charli’s Parklife set, the singer dancing along to their disembodied voices. Opening with a remix of brat track ‘365’, she takes us through a setlist that has a distinctly lime-green flavour, although not without callbacks to her earlier hits. 2020 track ‘party 4 u’, which recently had a viral moment of its own, is a highlight. The hidden gem has been getting its flowers lately, and they’re well-deserved – it’s a track that demonstrates Charli’s ability to divide her storytelling equally between lyrics and soundscapes, and find the big feelings at the heart of the big night out. With everyone on shoulders and a choir of voices singing the outro, it couldn’t feel more appropriate for Parklife, where so many are experiencing the highs and lows of the party for the very first time.
It’s Charli, so the downbeat moments are few and far between. We have the high-energy Barbie soundtrack contribution ‘Speed Drive’ and the wonderfully egotistical ‘Von Dutch’. “This one’s from that album that’s green,” she says unnecessarily, before diving into ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’, a perfectly-pitched jealousy confession about another female pop star. ‘Track 10’, a sonically complex offering about difficulties in a relationship, sees her dance under a curtain of water, throwing her hair back and forward. It’s a striking image, but closer ‘I Love It’ brings her straight back down to earth – a club banger that has truly stood the test of time, and has her jumping along with every member of the crowd.
As a performer, she’s so wholly committed that you can’t imagine there’s anywhere she’d rather be. What’s magical about Charli is she manages to be both the superstar and the hot girl in the club, both the artist and the girl who threw back two Jägerbombs and ran up onto the stage to dance. She struts and gyrates with finesse but not polish, close enough to us that she’s one of us, but only on our very best night, in our very best outfit. She makes it look so easy it all feels impulsive. When a message on the screen after her set requests that we let the brat spirit continue this summer, no one would dream of disagreeing. She defines cool. Brat summer is here to stay. Charli said so.
