For years, Charli XCX moved fast. Album cycles came to an abrupt end. A single would be released only for her to slag it off in an interview months later. Sitting down was creative death. In that way she’s long been the anti-Taylor Swift, an artist who’d probably react to the idea of an “eras” tour with an instant slap to the face of whoever was basic enough to suggest it to her. So how funny, how ironic, that Brat, her vibe-shifting, zeitgeist-eating summer 2024 behemoth, today feels so… ancient?
Of course, Charli’s Other Stage set on Saturday night – a gathering of presumably every substance-fuelled twenty and thirtysomething at Glastonbury – is breathtaking. We get rainfall, floor-spitting, and gyrating, albeit not the expected Lorde cameo on “Girl So Confusing” – an omission that is frankly tragic. But I’m curious how Charli really feels about it, if she feels a tinge of boredom with every repetition of “bumpin’ that” – if the fact that she hasn’t popped out a new record in a few months (weeks? hours?) is making her itch.
