Case Study: The Anniversary of Brat Summer
On June 7, 2024, Charli xcx released her album Brat, which kicked off the viral pop music sensation “Brat Summer”. If you’re anything like me, you hadn’t paid much attention to Charli xcx’s music for quite some time prior to Brat Summer 2024, and the release of this album felt a bit like a modern revival for her.
Except it wasn’t, not by a long shot. Charli xcx has actually been steadily releasing music every year or two since her debut album “True Romance” first dropped in 2013.
Even if you hate viral music trends, shallow TikTok promotion, and all of that, there’s still a lot of very strong marketing fundamentals at work here, and many valuable lessons you can consider applying to your own musical releases as an independent artist, in whatever ways you choose.
Learning from success stories
So, why did Brat Summer work so well at breaking through all the noise, in this case?
Well, it’s many different things all coming together perfectly:
high-quality music production that fits the musical style
very smart marketing (and lots of it)
interesting musical collaborations
touring
uniquely creative branding
music videos
…and much more!
This case study attempts to break down part of what made Brat Summer 2024 such a viral success story.
You don’t have to do it just like Charli, but let’s try to at least learn a thing or two about promoting records from someone who’s sold a lot of them.
All of my different practical creative case studies can be found here.
Interlude: musical patterns of note
Because the artistic stuff is more fun to talk about than the business stuff, let’s start off with some musical highlights.
Listen to the opening track on Brat; it’s called “360”. Then, listen to the final track on the album; it’s called “365”. You should notice a pretty clear pattern here: the opening synth riff in both of these songs are almost exactly the same, even though the lyrics and vocal melodies surrounding them are different. The riff as it appears on the closing track “365” is placed a few musical steps higher than when we first hear it stated on the opening track “360”.
This is called bookending, where there’s some sort of common musical motif used as a callback that ties the first and last tracks of an album together.
Other examples of musical bookending
If you like this kind of thing, you can also hear this technique used on the Billie Eilish album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, another smash pop hit. On this album, try listening to the string motifs at the following tracks and times:
SKINNY (2:40)
A melodic motif is stated in the string parts, on the opening track for the album.
THE GREATEST (3:23)
That same motif comes back, again in the strings, as part of a different musical arrangement, towards the middle of the album.
BLUE (4:37)
The album’s opening motif is again restated in the strings on the closing track, to bookend the album’s ending.
So, from an artistic perspective, bookending and restatement of common motifs throughout an album are two techniques that you can try using to create a more cohesive artistic statement.
Now, let’s get into the business stuff: marketing lessons, branding, streaming numbers, and revenue projections.
Promotional applications for smaller artists
Read on below for the detailed picture; here’s the bullet points.
Branding choices and visual identity can help “stop the scroll”. You can achieve this by using color, font choices, deliberate stylistic throwbacks in your graphic design, a deliberate lack of color, or some combination of these things. Using all-capital letters in her song titles is a strategy Billie Eilish commonly employs; I’m not personally a huge fan of this approach, but it obviously works well for her.
Your branding choices don’t have to be static, they can vary by release. Or, they can be part of a cohesive design language that remains consistent across releases, as is the case with Charli xcx. Whatever techniques you choose to use, clear intentionality in your artistic branding is a common thread to note.
Try remixing and dropping alternate versions of an album as part of your release sequence. Brat Summer 2024 wasn’t just one album release, but a sequence of at least three different album releases:
Brat
Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not
Brat and it’s completely different but still brat
And, this isn’t counting the scores of related singles, videos, and remixes supporting each of these three different yet related tentpole releases.
For smaller artists, you can apply this same technique without going quite as hard. Maybe try doing just one or two remixes, made by some friends, and released as supporting singles, rather than putting together multiple complete remix albums and a bajillion different videos and collaborative singles.
A certain amount of “minimum viable dose” is necessary when marketing your releases. Brat Summer took a very “blitzkrieg” approach to their marketing, and it worked. The idea was to drop so many singles, remixes, videos, and other content so quickly that there was almost no place you could go on the Internet where you wouldn’t find something related to this release cycle.
Doing marketing at this kind of massive worldwide scale is difficult to achieve working independently, without hiring a large team of marketing pros. But remember, you also don’t have to go nearly this hard when working as an independent. Minimum viable dose for an independent artist probably means doing more than just a single piece of press (or a single show) supporting your release, but perhaps less than 20 pieces of marketing content in total.
The exact volume of marketing that you do is up to you, and you will have to experiment to find out what the minimum viable dose is, in your individual situation. Don’t shy away from that creative experimentation in your marketing; embrace it as an additional creative outlet.
Collaborate. One of the coolest parts of the Brat Summer release cycle is the collaborative remix album Brat and it’s completely different but still brat, which dropped 4 months after the initial album release. I like a lot of the remixes and alternate tracks on this release more than the original songs, frankly. Collaborative releases associated with your studio album are a great way to do marketing and promotion in a more natural way that feels artistic, musical, and creative.
Consider using repeated artistic motifs, melodies, or common riffs to tie various songs on your album together. I wouldn’t force this: make sure you’re being creatively honest in your musical writing when doing this type of thing. If it’s something that feels natural to the music as you’re writing it, go for it.
Map out and plan your release strategy well in advance. Random album drops only work for long-established, prolific artists who have already made a big name for themselves. If you drop your album randomly as an unknown artist, you can expect it to get lost in the shuffle.
You might not have the massive teams of marketing professionals that a major-label artist has access to, but anyone can plan a more intentional release at any level. Give yourself at least 3-6 months start to finish when mapping out your release cycle, and write down/schedule your plans using a promotional calendar. Starting a new Google calendar called “Promo calendar”, and thinking of some creative ways to fill it up is a great, free way to get started.
Marketing lessons from Brat Summer
Branding color choices
One of the biggest marketing lessons to learn from this release is its highly effective use of color branding. Let’s take a look at the main color: a pukey, neon yellow-green, with the closest Pantone match listed as “Wicked Green”:
Color branding details for the release of Brat.
At first glance, this color might seem to be an odd choice. This type of neon green isn’t very pleasant to look at; it almost makes you grimace when you see it. It’s rarely used out in the world, outside of high-visibility vests and tennis balls, for that reason.
In the context of a major-label worldwide music release, however, its rarity and aggressive color tone make this the perfect color to choose, because that visceral reaction that quickly grabs your attention is exactly what the marketing team is going for.
The use of this neon, unpleasant color is deliberately designed to “stop the scroll”. It’s a color so unusual to see in our everyday lives, that it pops you right out of mindlessly scrolling through a feed. It immediately makes you stop scrolling, take a second look, and ask, “what the heck is that?”.
Now, they’ve got your attention, and for a major-label worldwide pop music release that needs millions of streams just to break even on a project, your attention is everything.
Branding font and design choices
The font and design choices in this release are part of a through-line Charli xcx has been using in her branding for most of her major tentpole albums, since the release of her debut album True Romance in 2013:
Note the common elements:
Simple titles containing just one or two words.
An interesting (and unusual), all-lowercase font that’s shared between releases.
A deliberately fuzzy, de-rezzed quality that’s a throwback to the early Internet of the 1990s.
Eye-popping use of strong color contrast, and powerful color combinations. Even the black and white artwork for “charli” stands out and pops, because of its contrast with the other more brightly colored artwork surrounding it.
Conclusions on branding and visual identity
All of these different branding techniques combine to form a visual identity that’s unique and catchy, but in a very non-traditional sense, especially for a major-label pop music artist. The music might be glossy, constructed, and highly produced, and the stage shows quite elaborate, but the visual branding has been intentionally designed to look low-budget.
That’s a deliberate choice: remember, Charli xcx is in no way an independent artist; she’s a major-label commercialized pop star performing pop music hits to huge, mass-market audiences on massive worldwide arena tours. She’s been signed to some of the world’s largest music labels like Atlantic Records, Warner Music, and Asylum (also owned by Warner Music).
Blurring the lines between the indies and the majors
The major labels are smart, and they’ve long recognized the strong commercial appeal of the independent artist. Skipping the more traditional, high-gloss approach to pop-star visual branding, in the case of Brat and the visual identity of Charli xcx, is a continuation of a major-label strategy of deliberately blurring the lines between independent pop artists and manufactured pop stars over the last 30 years.
Other examples of this strategy include the careers of Lorde, Billie Eilish, and even Chappell Roan: these artists all have genuine independent elements in their recorded music, their branding, and how they present themselves to the world, and there is certainly genuine artistic honesty to be seen, when considering these artists as people.
But make no mistake: all of these artists are also funded by, and in constant collaboration with, the world’s largest major music labels. They may have earned creative independence in their careers, but their careers are also a far cry from that of your typical independent artist.
This strategy has been used more and more by the major labels since grunge first took off in the 1990s: it absolutely is a deliberate strategy, and it absolutely works. Appearing to be an independent artist, even if you’re actually a giant major-label pop star playing huge arena shows, has turned into quite the lucrative business.
Streaming numbers
There’s no doubt that the release strategy for this album worked out quite well for both Charli xcx and her label. At time of writing, the top 5 most popular songs in her discography are all off of Brat (or its related releases), and they all have over 140M streams each.
Guess, the collaborative single with Billie Eilish, had over 400M streams at time of writing and has accumulated well over half a billion streams since.
A sampling of streaming numbers for Brat by Charlie xcx.
Potential revenue numbers
Let’s run some very rough, inaccurate revenue figures on this release. All numbers were current as of time of writing, and will fall out of date quickly. These are for illustrative and educational purposes only:
Total paid streams from the top 5 songs off of Brat on Spotify: 1,334,475,780. Whoa.
Total potential revenue from those Spotify streams alone: $4,003,427.
This assumes payouts at the standard estimated rate of $0.003 cents per stream, which may be lower than the actual rate that was paid out: major labels often get special deals on their streaming royalty payout rates.
This number also doesn’t include any physical media sales, concert ticket sales, advertising, or revenue from other streaming services, all of which would be significant additional income streams associated with this release, likely totaling many additional millions of dollars.
Revenue as a major label artist vs. independent
Remember, Charlie xcx is not keeping all of this money herself. Many major-label artists see a significant percentage of the income they generate wind up in the hands of others, rather than in their own pockets.
That’s part of the deal with being a major-label artist: you get lots of administrative support from teams of technical, marketing, legal, and financial professionals, at the cost of paying a significant percentage of the income that you generate out to your label and that team.
