Music
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“For ‘A Bar Song’ to still be doing what it’s doing is insane,” an awestruck Shaboozey told Billboard in November about his breakout song’s then-16-week-long run atop the Billboard Hot 100. “[It’s] crazy how much the song carried on its own. We don’t even do anything and it’s like, ‘Hey, you’re aiming for a 17th week now!’ ”
Of course, monthslong No. 1 smashes don’t just happen on their own — but “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” which has achieved 19 weeks at No. 1, wasn’t the only country single to reach the peak this year. Between Post Malone’s Morgan Wallen-assisted “I Had Some Help,” Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em” and Wallen’s own “Love Somebody,” country has topped Billboard’s all-genre singles chart more than any other genre this year. Shaboozey’s and Post Malone’s smashes are the only 2024 releases to log more than three weeks atop the chart — a notable feat, considering that the former is a country newcomer and the latter is a pop/hip-hop crossover star.
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“I Had Some Help,” which arrived in April and debuted atop the Hot 100, marked the first major release of Post Malone’s country music foray, which Grammy Award-nominated producer Louis Bell describes as a “natural transition” from the singer-songwriter space of the artist’s 2023 Austin album. “We want each project to flow into the next,” he tells Billboard.
Posty’s pop-country jam started with massive streams and sales, perfectly setting the stage for the arrival of the album F-1 Trillion, which opened in the penthouse of the Billboard 200 (dated Aug. 31) with 250,000 units, according to Luminate. All 18 songs from the album’s standard edition reached the Hot 100, including 15 collaborations with country powerhouses like Dolly Parton, Brad Paisley and Chris Stapleton — a testament to the Nashville goodwill that the Grammy-nominated pop star had accrued during his formal entry into the country space.
Historically, country music has been vigilant about newcomers immersing themselves in the genre’s roots, and Post got his boots dirty to prove his bona fides. He and Bell, who co-produced every track on F-1 Trillion, began working on it in November 2023 in Nashville right before the Country Music Association (CMA) Awards — foreshadowing the four nods that “I Had Some Help” would earn at the awards show the following year.
The two collaborators worked on the first few songs of the F-1 Trillion sessions with country superstar Luke Combs. “Post started saying that it [made] sense to collaborate on a lot of these records because he wanted to show Nashville how much he loves country and shine a light on the people who are in the city that inspired him,” Bell explains. “That was always the vision from the top down.” By inviting Nashville heavyweights such as Tim McGraw to collaborate in person, Post made sure that “word spread pretty quickly of how legitimate [he] was and how much he knew about the genre.”
To fully transition into the new style, he and Bell also implemented a new approach to their creative process: mulling over stories and concepts at the onset of a session instead of building out beats and melodies they had already been tinkering with.
The month before “I Had Some Help,” Post covered Hank Williams at Nashville’s iconic Ryman Auditorium, and in the months following the song’s release, he performed his first songwriter’s round at the Bluebird Cafe, played a set of classic country covers at Stagecoach 2024, made his Grand Ole Opry debut and brought out Blake Shelton as a surprise guest at his first-ever stadium show.
While Posty had to overcome his pop profile in his quest for crossover success, Shaboozey, a newcomer to the mainstream, had to establish who he was. “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” served as the fourth single — but was the first to get a radio push — from his third studio album, Where I’ve Been Isn’t Where I’m Going, which topped the Folk Albums and Independent Albums charts. With no major country collaborators, Shaboozey’s project didn’t come with the overt approval of the Nashville establishment — but it did arrive on the back of two appearances on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter in March, helping to spur eye-popping early consumption for “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” now nominated three times over at the 2025 Grammys ceremony.
“It was a bit of a fast and furious [situation],” says Heather Vassar, EMPIRE senior vp of operations, Nashville. Country radio programmers “were already familiar with Shaboozey’s name, but we had a very global, multiformat approach. When we decided to launch at country radio, we made sure they understood him and the whole project. The more authentic conversations we had, the more receptive they’ve become, and they’ve been incredible.”
Harnessing the power of his interpolation of J-Kwon’s 2004 Hot 100 No. 2 hip-hop smash, “Tipsy,” Shaboozey was able to expand the reach of “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and tap into more diverse segments of country’s listenership. The track’s whistling instrumentation kept it squarely in the country genre, while its rap-sung flow and Birkin name-check kept it accessible for hip-hop and top 40 audiences — and those who had been newly corralled into the post-Cowboy Carter country wave. Shaboozey also made his Nashville rounds, playing The Nashville East and Spotify House at CMA Fest.
“The beauty of our country ecosystem — outside of select playlists — is that genre lines have been less of a concern,” Spotify country editor Claire Heinichen says. “Pop-country was the dominant subgenre for most of the 2010s. We knew the audience would really resonate with [these] songs. The data spoke for itself.”
It will be difficult for country songs to replicate the Hot 100 dominance of “I Had Some Help” and “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” without the boost of 2024’s larger paradigm shift. Yet Posty’s emphasis on adhering to country traditionalism and Shaboozey’s plays to more underserved country music listeners provide equally strong blueprints for future crossover hits.
This story appears in the Dec. 14, 2024, issue of Billboard.
While they’re not back together, Cardi B and Offset were spotted in the same Miami nightclub making it rain over the weekend. The Migos rapper made a guest appearance during Don Toliver’s Rolling Loud set and celebrated his 33rd birthday in South Beach. Cardi pulled up to support her baby daddy, but she remained in […]
Sorry, Arianators. Despite rumors to the contrary, Ariana Grande does not have a tour in the works for 2025, something her label confirmed on X Sunday (Dec. 15). Replying to a fan account speculating that the pop star was gearing up to announce a run of concert dates, Republic Records cut to the chase by […]
Prior to 2024, Sabrina Carpenter had spent most of her career trying to score a crossover pop hit. Following her years as a Disney Channel star and recording artist on the Disney-owned Hollywood Records in the 2010s, she transitioned from younger-skewing tunes to pop that targeted adult listeners; her 2022 album, Emails I Can’t Send, didn’t produce any hits upon its release, but the album’s “Nonsense” belatedly turned into a viral smash, and “Feather,” from its deluxe edition, became Carpenter’s first top 40 entry on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 21.
Those singles hinted at a breakthrough moment for Carpenter — and in 2024, the floodgates opened. She earned her first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with her sixth album, Short n’ Sweet; headlined her first arena shows; and earned her first Grammy nominations, including in album, record and song of the year and best new artist. Yet the songs that became her sought-after smashes weren’t just her first Hot 100 top 10s — they remained in the upper tier for long enough to make chart history.
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From the Hot 100 charts dated Sept. 7 through Oct. 26, Carpenter boasted three songs — “Espresso,” “Please Please Please” and “Taste” — in the top 10, making her the first artist this decade to score a run of as many as eight weeks with at least three simultaneous top 10s on the chart. Although a few artists, including 50 Cent and Drake, have juggled three songs in the top 10 for more than eight weeks, only Carpenter, The Beatles and Justin Bieber have done so as solo-billed acts. And Carpenter now owns the longest such streak among women, surpassing Cardi B, who had three concurrent top 10s for four weeks in 2018.
Alex Tear, vp of music programming at SiriusXM and Pandora, says that, between a significant longtime fan base and the momentum leading up to 2024, Carpenter was always primed for a major year. “The audience appetite is amazing,” he says. “She really came into focus with the masses, but she had her Disney audience. When she was on Hollywood Records 10 years ago, she was grinding, she had a loyal following, she had a great presence and she was strong onstage.”
While songs like “Nonsense” and “Feather” didn’t become inescapable, both turned into slow-growing hits that introduced Carpenter’s melodic instincts and tongue-in-cheek wordplay to radio listeners and swelling audiences. Before “Espresso” made its live debut at Coachella, for instance, fans flocked to see how Carpenter was going to end “Nonsense” during her set, since she had been flooding TikTok feeds with her customized, often R-rated outros in concert.
“Her musicality and personality blow me away every time that we work together,” Amy Allen, who co-wrote every song on Short n’ Sweet (and is now nominated for the songwriter of the year, non-classical Grammy), told Billboard in August. Island Records vp of A&R Jackie Winkler told Billboard earlier this year, “At the core, the music Sabrina makes is perfectly reflective of who she is as a person, and all the quirks and character are what give her such a strong musical identity.”
That identity was on full display with “Espresso,” which zoomed into the top 10 upon its April release and peaked at No. 3, and continued with “Please Please Please,” which became Carpenter’s first Hot 100 chart-topper in June. When Short n’ Sweet arrived in August, opener “Taste” was positioned as an immediate standout (with a music video co-starring Jenna Ortega) and has climbed to No. 2.
Tear notes that the timing of those releases helped let each one breathe as a focus track and gave listeners time to latch onto their hooks before Carpenter presented another mainstream offering. And as the songs lingered in the top 10 for weeks, their respective sounds — with “Espresso” as her summer-ready synth-pop confection, “Please Please Please” her glittery alt-country riff and “Taste” her guitar-heavy ’80s pop anthem — were different enough to help her avoid oversaturation on streaming playlists and in radio blocks.
“Espresso” and “Please Please Please” have both topped the Pop Airplay chart, while “Taste” is still climbing, peaking at No. 3 so far. “Pop channels can kill a song by playing it over and over again,” Tear says. “I really like the fact that we have multiple choices that are very popular with our audience, that we can alternate with, therefore diminishing burn [and] giving a better variety of Sabrina.”
The trio of singles settled into the top 10 of the Hot 100 just as Carpenter kicked off her Short n’ Sweet tour in September, performing all three hits to arena audiences and reposting fan videos from the shows. And multiple hits were highlighted when the Grammy nominations were announced Nov. 8: “Espresso” scored a record of the year nod while “Please Please Please” will compete for song of the year.
The 2025 Grammys ceremony will showcase Carpenter’s immense 2024, but don’t expect her run of hits to dry up as the calendar flips. As the Short n’ Sweet tour is set to continue in Europe in March, “Bed Chem,” a sensual rhythmic pop track from the album, may also reach a new Hot 100 peak, as the song has climbed to No. 30 on the chart.
“I don’t know how many albums come out where you can go, ‘OK, this is five or six [hits] deep,’ ” Tear says. “It’s not going anywhere.”
This story appears in the Dec. 14, 2024, issue of Billboard.
A 67-year-old billionaire adopting a pop culture catchphrase should be cringe-worthy — but for Drake, it was a reminder of the ubiquity of Kendrick Lamar.
After Drake disparaged NBA star DeMar DeRozan, who had previously played for his beloved Toronto Raptors, Vivek Ranadivé (the owner of DeRozan’s current team, the Sacramento Kings) fired back at Drake in defense of his forward. While sitting courtside for a November contest between the Kings and the Raptors, Ranadivé donned a black T-shirt with four words emblazoned across his chest: “They Not Like Us.”
Count Ranadivé among the Lamar fans who have puffed out their chests since the Compton, Calif., rapper served up “Not Like Us,” the game-winning shot in his feud with Drake, on May 6. And while hip-hop purists would’ve bet on Drake as the one to walk away from a battle with a hit record, it was K. Dot who flipped the script on the Toronto rap deity.
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The OVO honcho attempted to land a direct hit of his own with the three-part blitz “Family Matters,” but Lamar didn’t even give the track a chance to breathe as he followed up 30 minutes later with the diabolical “Meet the Grahams.” Smothering “Family Matters” shrewdly allowed K. Dot to clear the lane and counter with “Not Like Us.” On the latter track, Lamar used producer Mustard’s Cali bounce to peel back the layers of Drake’s cultural identity while repeatedly accusing him of pedophilia.
In response, Drake could only muster up an addition to Lamar’s “The Heart” song series with “The Heart Pt. 6,” which found him losing his footing and backpedaling to the defensive. And when the dust settled, the consensus was clear: Lamar had emerged as the champ. Not only was “Not Like Us” a knockout blow, but a pro-Black Los Angeles anthem that is now cemented into rap battle lore alongside classic West Coast dis tracks like Ice Cube’s “No Vaseline” and 2Pac’s “Hit Em Up.”
“When I was growing up, I watched 2Pac, ‘California Love,’ Dr. Dre, Snoop [Dogg], the Death Row days,” Mustard told Billboard in October. “It’s like being a part of that again, but in this day and age.”
While Drake has been one of pop music’s architects — collecting 338 Billboard Hot 100 entries to Lamar’s 87 — K. Dot won the rap charts battle when “Euphoria” (No. 3) and “Not Like Us” (No. 1) became the only dis tracks in the feud to reach the Hot 100’s top five. “Not Like Us” not only debuted atop the chart but also set a record on Hot Rap Songs: 25 weeks at No. 1 through Nov. 23.
“That’s hard to ignore, especially when you’re evaluating an artist who’s taken pride in being so much bigger than everyone else based on his numbers,” Spotify head of urban music/creative director Carl Chery says of Lamar besting Drake. “There were moments where it felt like Drake had the advantage, but in hindsight, Kendrick was ahead every step of the way and his win feels more decisive every day.”
In retrospect, March 29, 2024, was a seminal date in rap history. Lamar chose violence with a show-stealing assist on “Like That,” the centerpiece of Future and Metro Boomin’s collaborative album We Don’t Trust You. On the track, Lamar responds to a line from J. Cole and Drake’s 2023 collaboration, “First Person Shooter,” on which Cole questions who’s leading rap’s “Big Three”: “Is it K. Dot? Is it Aubrey? Or me?” On “Like That,” Lamar defiantly replies: “Motherf–k the Big Three, n—a, it’s just big me.”
“Like That” launched at No. 1 on the Hot 100, and Lamar’s guest verse shook the tectonic plates of hip-hop. Cole dipped his toes into the feud before bowing out with a public apology onstage at his Dreamville Festival in May — leaving Drake to fight for himself.
Far before Lamar and Drake were ever dubbed part of rap’s Big Three, their paths were intertwined near the start of their careers. The titans traded verses on each other’s Take Care and good kid, m.A.A.d city albums, and Drizzy brought Lamar on the road as an opener on his 2012 Club Paradise Tour. Things turned icy the next year when Lamar put the entire rap game on blast with his maniacal verse on Big Sean’s “Control.” And while their feud was mostly dormant ever since, “First Person Shooter” poked the bear — and Lamar returned battle-ready.
Through the first weekend of May alone, Drake and Lamar exchanged haymakers at a relentless pace, dropping a collective eight dis tracks in total — all of which highlight their opposite backgrounds. Drake, who is biracial and from Toronto, was a child actor before becoming rap’s pop-leaning hit-maker. K. Dot, a Compton native with a Dr. Dre co-sign, quickly emerged as one of rap’s storytelling savants, with a penchant for illustrating the distressing Black experience in America.
“A lot of fans assumed that Kendrick is a slow writer because he took a five-year break between [2017 album] DAMN. and [2022’s] Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, so I think people were shocked to see him release four songs in five days,” Chery says. “I don’t think we’ll ever see such a high-stakes battle unfold this way ever again.”
50 Cent, an artist well-versed in rap beef, thinks the back-and-forth was “good for hip-hop” by forcing both artists to become more prolific. “It was about the lyrics, but that s–t was on a different level,” he said in an October Billboard interview. “The f–king [good kid, m.A.A.d city] car in the [“Family Matters”] video — that shit was a mystery. Everything was tied to something.”
Chery also credits Lamar’s shrewd strategy and instincts as what got the better of Drake. “I think Kendrick won because his strategy was arguably better than his music,” he says. “[Lamar] predicted the way the battle was going to play out on ‘Euphoria’ and ‘6:16 in L.A.’ He also gave Drake a taste of his own medicine [by releasing] back-to-back dis songs twice.”
And not only was his strategy better, but it was built to last. Lamar’s music zeitgeist has carried momentum all year long: In September, it was announced that he would headline the Super Bowl LIX halftime show in February 2025. By November, “Not Like Us” had yet to depart the Hot 100’s top 20 since its release, Lamar scored five Grammy nominations for the upcoming 67th annual awards ceremony and he capped off his banner campaign with the surprise release of his GNX album on Nov. 22. Just days later, Billboard reported that Drake filed legal documents alleging Universal Music Group and Spotify had conspired to “artificially inflate the popularity” of “Not Like Us.”
But consumption aside, “Not Like Us” has transcended traditional popularity: Snoop credited Lamar with unifying the West Coast during Lamar’s The Pop Out: Ken & Friends concert on Juneteenth at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif. The hit even permeated different alleys of pop culture, adopted by the Los Angeles Dodgers on their journey to winning the 2024 World Series.
“The song took on a life of its own beyond the battle,” Chery says. “You saw viral clips of kids dancing to it at bat mitzvahs. The U.S. basketball team played it after every win during the Summer Olympics. It’s weirdly become universal. Almost everyone can identify with representing a specific idea and feeling like someone else represents the antithesis of who they are.”
This story appears in the Dec. 14, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Northampton rapper Slowthai has been cleared of raping two women after one of his shows. The 29-year-old (real name Tyler Frampton) had previously been accused of sexually assaulting them following his performance at The Bullingdon in Oxford in September 2021.
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Frampton and his co-accused, Alex Blake-Walker, were both found not guilty on three joint counts of rape following a trial at Oxford Crown Court. Blake-Walker was also cleared on one count of sexual assault. The not guilty verdict was announced Monday (Dec. 16) following 10 hours of deliberation by the jury.
The BBC reports that Frampton broke down in tears when the verdict was announced, and that there were gasps in the public gallery.
The trial heard that Frampton and his friends were invited to a party in Oxford following the conclusion of his show. The prosecution alleged that Blake-Walker had raped one woman at the encouragement of Frampton, who was then accused of twice raping a second complainant.
During the trial, Frampton said that sexual activity had taken place between him and the second complainant, but insisted that it had been consensual. “I know she was consenting, there wasn’t a question,” the BBC reports that he said during the trial.
Frampton and Blake-Walker had previously denied all the charges, and said the two women consented to all sexual activity.
The updates came after prosecutor Heather Stangoe warned jurors in the closing argument not to be “Wagatha Christies” in their deliberations, referencing the infamous legal battle between Rebekah Vardy and Coleen Rooney in their 2022 libel case in the U.K.
The presiding judge, Ian Pringle, asked jurors to “lay aside any feelings of sympathy or dislike” and make their decision in a “calm and cool manner,” adding that they “must be sure of guilt” if they were to convict the two men.
Patrick Gibbs KC, the lawyer defending Frampton, said in court that there were a dozen “problems” with accusations outlined. He added that Slowthai isn’t “everybody’s stereotype of a rapper,” describing him as a “thoughtful and modest” man who “throws himself, sometimes recklessly, into life.”
Also in the court proceedings, Blake-Walker’s lawyer Sheryl Nwosu, said that the evidence outlined “doesn’t fit with Mr Blake-Walker and his behaviour on the night,” while Judge Pringle said the case was a “question of consent.”
Frampton had been accompanied by his wife, pop star Anne-Marie, throughout the trial, which was held at Oxford Crown Court.
Frampton released his most recent album, Ugly, under his Slowthai moniker in 2023. Following the announcement of the charges that year, he was dropped from festival lineups for Glastonbury Festival and Reading & Leeds.
Lady Gaga has a surprise early Christmas present for her Little Monsters. Without any prior announcement, a cover of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” by the superstar appeared overnight on streaming services Monday (Dec. 16), featuring a soulful rock twist on a timeless classic. Opening with bright electric guitars and some rock n’ roll […]
“Oh yes, oh yes, Austin!” techno master Carl Cox announced to the crowd at the start of his set at November’s Seismic Dance Event in the Texas capital. Cox was on hand at the event to play one of his signature Hybrid Live sets, for with he both DJs and employs hardware including drum machines […]
Paris Hilton is imploring the U.S. House of Representatives to pass a bill protecting victims of child abuse before the Christmas holiday. In an impassioned open letter posted on her Instagram on Monday morning (Dec. 16), Hilton urged members of the House to “think of the children woh can’t speak for themselves. They’re counting on you,” adding, “let’s turn pain into purpose and protect the most vulnerable among us.”
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The accompanying note from the singer/DJ and co-star of the new Peacock Simple Life reboot Paris & Nicole: The Encore implored House members to pass the Stop Institutional Child Abuse bill before they leave for the holiday break.
Hilton — who in 2021 gave emotional testimony in a Utah courtroom about the emotional, physical and psychological abuse she said she suffered at Utah boarding school as a teen — wrote in her letter that for most of her life she “carried a deep, unspoken pain. I thought if I stayed quiet, if I buried it far enough, maybe I could convince myself it didn’t happen. But silence doesn’t heal — it only protects the people that caused the harm. Speaking up has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s also been the most powerful.”
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In the letter, mother of two Hilton, 39, recounted that as a teenager she was sent to a youth residential treatment facility where she endured “abuse that no child should ever experience.” She recounted what she’s alleged was abuse including being “physically restrained, sexually abused, isolated, overmedicated and stripped of my dignity. I was told I didn’t matter, that I was the problem, and that no one would believe me if I spoke up — not even my family.”
She said she lived with the weight of that trauma for years and didn’t begin to heal until she found the voice to speak out. “Advocating for change has been one of the most challenging and rewarding journeys of my life,” she wrote, talking of meeting fellow survivors who’ve shared their stories and how they inspired her to continue trying to help those still trapped in the system.
Hilton also detailed her alleged abuse in the 2020 YouTube Originals doc This Is Paris, which chronicled how that trauma carried over into her adulthood and she has frequently traveled to Washington, D.C. to advocate Congress, and the White House, to work on reform to youth residential treatment facilities. The Senate passed its version of the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act with unanimous support last week, legislation that Hilton has been lobbying for for more than three years; Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer personally thanked Hilton after the bill’s passage.
Now Hilton is urging the House to pass their version with just one week left in the 118th Congress before lawmakers go home for the holiday and effectively wrap their work for this session in advance of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
“When the U.S. Senate came together in a rare show of unity to pass the Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act unanimously on Wednesday December 11th, it was one of the best moments of my life,” she wrote. “It was proof that when we listen to survivors and put politics aside, we can create real, meaningful change. But this journey isn’t over. I can’t celebrate until this bill becomes law, and now it’s up to the U.S. House of Representatives to finish what the Senate started.”
Hilton then specifically called out Majority Leader Steve Scalise, House Speaker Mike Johnson and the rest of the members to think about children who can’t speak for themselves. “They’re relying on us — on you — to stand up for their safety and dignity,” she said. “Passing this bill would be a testament to what we can achieve when we lead with empathy and courage.”
According to ABC News, Hilton was due back in Washington to meet with House members in person on Monday to urge them to pass the bill.
See Hilton’s open letter below.
“The reason I love electronic music and clubs and DJs so much is that everything is endless,” Charli xcx told Billboard in her July cover story. Fittingly, the veteran pop artist got her start in London’s rave scene over a decade ago and, across five albums, developed a faithful cult following. But it was her sixth album, brat, and its yearlong rollout, that shifted perception — and expanded her fandom.
Beginning with her record-breaking Boiler Room warehouse set in February, Charli let demand slowly build before the June release of brat, which was met with critical acclaim and became her highest-charting title on the Billboard 200, entering at No. 3 and collecting 82,000 equivalent album units in its first week, according to Luminate. In the following months, the internet deemed the season “Brat Summer” as Charli became even more omnipresent and brat started to shape-shift.
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Soon after brat’s release, Charli dropped a surprise remix of standout song “Girl, so confusing” featuring its subject: Lorde. The drop hinted at more to come, and in August the “Guess” remix featuring Billie Eilish arrived — and soon became the highest-charting song from brat, peaking at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. Brat Summer soon turned into Brat Fall with the September kickoff of her co-headlining Sweat Tour with Troye Sivan, during which Charli released a full-fledged remix album titled Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat.
Every song was reimagined and featured at least one special guest, including Robyn and Yung Lean (“360”), Ariana Grande (“Sympathy Is a Knife”), Bon Iver (“I Think About It All the Time”) and Sivan on “Talk Talk,” which closed each night of their tour. To celebrate the release of the remix album, a larger-than-life “sonic sculpture” was unveiled at New York’s open-air Storm King Art Center, juxtaposing its lime green walls against the browning colors of the surrounding grass and trees.
By November, brat earned Charli seven Grammy nominations — including for album and record of the year (“360”) — and she ended the month by pulling double duty as host and musical guest on Saturday Night Live. She closed the year by announcing a few 2025 solo arena dates, as well as a headlining set at Primavera Sound in Barcelona and a main-stage booking at Coachella. The word “brat” was even named word of the year by the Collins English Dictionary.
As for what’s still ahead, her management team reveals that all of 2025 is already planned out. For an artist like Charli, who has “always operated three steps ahead,” as Twiggy Rowley, a member of her management team, previously told Billboard, the blueprints for Brat Winter and Brat Spring have indeed been laid — and will lead right back to where it all began, with no end in sight. Just as Charli always wanted.
And yet, as Charli said while speaking to the audience at a May screening of her “360” music video, “It’s hard being ahead.” Her longtime creative director, Imogene Strauss, agrees, telling Billboard in June: “I think this is very true. Doing things first almost never means you’re going to be the biggest or most famous. Being the reference means you have to make choices that go against the status quo.”
Still, Charli and her team have managed to sustain the momentum surrounding brat for months — and make it look easy. And while her previous output has earned critical love, she and her team’s lockstep moves in 2024 have actually helped her become both one of the biggest and most famous pop stars of the year.
“Going into this album, Charli had written a 20-page manifesto for the core team,” recalls Brandon Davis, executive vp/co-head of pop A&R at Atlantic. “So much of what you saw throughout the campaign was conceptualized many months prior by her. She’s a genius. The look, the feel, the sound, the art, the fashion — it was all there and all Charli.”
Because of that precision, her team was able to build “key campaign moments” based on her vision. “Where things got a bit spontaneous,” Davis continues, “was what happened next.”
He cites the “brat wall” as the best example of inspiring “massive cultural moments” that the team then had the challenge of amplifying. Over the summer, a wall in Brooklyn was painted brat green and communicated different messages and updates about the album, all of which were written and broadcast live for fans gathering in person and watching on social media. Soon enough, cities around the world from San Francisco to Brisbane, Australia, enacted walls of their own.
Davis also mentions the “brat generator,” an online tool that lets users customize their own brat album cover-inspired images, as helping boost the album’s cultural cachet. Once the team realized how widely the tool was being used, they mobilized to create multiple versions of the generator for each version of brat and, eventually, for the Sweat Tour as well.
As expected, the tour had brattiness coursing through it, with Strauss previously telling Billboard it was “an interesting morphing, shifting thing” because of how the album itself evolved throughout the trek. The list of potential surprise guests grew, too: At Madison Square Garden, Lorde joined Charli for their “Girl, so confusing” remix, and at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum, Kesha performed her version of “Spring breakers” (off the deluxe Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not), which arrived as a surprise release days after Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat.
“So much of this rollout was planned, but sometimes it was not,” Charli previously told Billboard, speaking of her “Girl, so confusing” remix with Lorde, which took just three days to arrange. As Davis reveals, “There was a moment where we weren’t even sure if the song would make it out on all [digital service providers] in time.”
Charli’s management team, led by Brandon Creed with Rowley and Sam Pringle, say the brat remixes are a perfect example of how quickly she moved following the release of the original album. While Charli always planned on releasing a remix set, no one anticipated how much momentum her collaboration with Lorde, which charted at No. 63 on the Hot 100, would inject into the campaign. And ever since, Charli has kept illustrating how being nimble is crucial to the “endless” release cycle she always wanted.
“It was a total balancing act of strategy and real-time decisions,” Charli’s management team shared in a joint statement to Billboard. “The entire brat campaign exemplifies perfectly when an artist and their team are locked in and able to amplify, magnify and pivot with all decisions.”
“I think the key fundamental was to always be watching, always be nimble and always stay close to Charli,” Davis adds. “She knows herself, and her fans, best.”
As for what will come next, that’s for Charli to know and fans to find out. How very brat.
This story appears in the Dec. 14, 2024, issue of Billboard.