Post-'Brat' summer, Charli XCX reminds Coachella who she really is

To many, the satellite of Charli XCX consists of lime green, high-profile collaborations and hard drugs. But the British popular star’s Coachella show reminds us, she’s overmuch more.

Before she took the stage, murmurs took implicit the green-clad crowd. Could Billie Eilish marque an appearance? What astir Troye Sivan? No, it has to beryllium Addison Rae. In her each achromatic attire, the vocalist appears connected the Coachella main stage, causing the assemblage to roar. Behind her blacked-out glasses, she sets the tone, exclaiming, “What the f—?”

Luckily, the whispers were correct—XCX peppered her show with predictable experiences. Sweat circuit co-headliner and “Rush” vocalist Troye Sivan kicked disconnected the star-studded lineup to execute their “Talk Talk” remix, past came alternate empress Lorde for “Girl, So Confusing” and Billie Eilish completed the beatified trinity by performing “Guess.”

But beyond her A-list associations, XCX delivered a mostly “brat” setlist. She patrolled the signifier with an undeniable consciousness of confidence—making her mode down to the barricade and strutting up and down the lengthy catwalk, reddish solo cupful successful hand. Next to me, radical sniff tiny piles of cocaine from their acrylic nails. Others flail astir and shriek each lyric.

Charli XCX has been a subordinate of the popular country for implicit a decade. As the vocalist connected Icona Pop’s “I Love it” and Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy,” the vocalist spent her aboriginal vocation edging a mainstream breakthrough and gathering a fiercely loyal fanbase. It wasn’t until “brat,” her 5th workplace album, that her poignant lyricism and experimental sonics began to click with the wide population. The June merchandise became much than a charting record, but alternatively a taste question — creating what has been coined arsenic “brat summer.” Encouraging radical to clasp a enactment manner and fto loose, XCX has spent the past twelvemonth astatine the helm of a enactment miss revival.

Her past offering was the 2012 Icona Pop collaboration, “I Love it.” The memorable, throwback synths filled the Coachella air. It was a afloat ellipse infinitesimal – arsenic an aged video of XCX comes to mind. It’s 1 wherever she was performing the aforesaid track, successful 2014 astatine a German euphony festival. The young XCX gets frustrated with the soundless assemblage and yells, “Do you cognize the f—ing words?”

Now, they do. In the mediate of the dense crowd, you tin hardly perceive XCX’s vocals implicit the crowd’s thunderous vocals, singing “I don’t attraction / I emotion it” implicit and implicit again. The usually stone-faced vocalist lets a grin radiance through. Oh, however things person changed.

She’s gone successful a flash but leaves the assemblage with a message. Written connected the ample screens, she acknowledges the extremity of brat summertime and questions, “Idk who I americium erstwhile it’s over.”

It lone takes a fewer seconds for her to permission america with the reminder—“I’m Charli.” But she shouldn’t sweat it —we won’t beryllium forgetting that anytime soon.