Read more: Brat is similarly concerned with the self-construction of identity and celebrity in Charli\u2019s \u201cparty girl\u201d image. Her interest in fame is reflected both in her album\u2019s extensive branding and in lyrics like, \u201cWhen I go to the club I wanna hear those club classics\/I wanna dance to me\u201d.<\/p>\n In Might say Something Stupid, Charli admits that she is \u201cfamous but not quite\u201d and doesn\u2019t know if she \u201cbelong[s] here anymore\u201d. This echoes John Keats\u2019 1818 poem When I have fears that I may cease to be<\/a>, in which he laments that he might die before he experiences true literary achievement and fame. Charli has inherited the identity of lonely artist obsessed with creative genius from the Romantics.<\/p>\n Anxieties around legacy resurface in Apple. Charli uses the apple as a Gothic metaphor for inheritance and cursed fate, not unlike Byron\u2019s On Leaving Newstead Abbey<\/a>, in which he imagines his ancestors haunting him until death. Romantic poetry is full of this tension between inheritance and decay, and Charli\u2019s lyrics show how those anxieties still haunt us today.<\/p>\n Romantic poets were obsessed with the archaic and classical through Greek and Roman mythology, ruins, and medievalism, like John Keats\u2019 poem Ode to a Grecian Urn<\/a>. Similarly, Brat frequently looks back with references to Y2K aesthetics and early 2000s culture. <\/p>\n Charli romanticises nostalgia in the song Rewind: <\/p>\n Used to burn CDs full of songs I didn\u2019t know In both cases, romantic nostalgia becomes a creative lens to explore our relationship with the past.<\/p>\n Romantic poets were fascinated by the sublime, characterised as the overwhelming power of nature. In Wordsworth\u2019s Lines Composed A Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey<\/a>, he contrasts \u201cthe din\/Of towns and cities\u201d against awe-inspiring \u201csteep and lofty cliffs\u201d. <\/p>\n Read more: In the song, Everything is Romantic, Charli instead finds beauty in juxtaposing symbols: the man-made (\u201cBad tattoos on leather tan skin\/Jesus Christ on a Plastic sign\u201d) contrasts nature (\u201cLemons on th\u0435 trees and on the ground\/[\u2026] Pompeii in the distance\u201d). Where the Romantics rejected the artificial, Charli embraces it, extending Romantic ideas into the 21st century.<\/p>\n The most explicitly romantic song on Brat is So I, an elegy for the producer Sophie<\/a>, who died suddenly in 2020. Just as in romantic elegies, Charli laments the loss of genius: \u201cYour star burns so bright\/ [\u2026] You had a power like a lightnin\u2019 strike\u201d. <\/p>\n Percy Shelley\u2019s elegy Adonais<\/a>, written on the death of Keats, concludes that the genius of Keats lives on through his poetry. Similarly, Charli sings: \u201cYour sounds, your words live on, endless.\u201d The influence of Romantic elegies can still be seen in popular culture through music, particularly songs which immortalise fellow artists and explore contemporary understandings of grief.<\/p>\n The media studies academic David Tetzlaff argues that, \u201cRomanticism remains the common language of middle-class rebelliousness.\u201d<\/a> Brat rebels most obviously in its neon green branding, hyperpop tracks and aggressive autotune, becoming one of Rolling Stone\u2019s 250 greatest albums of the 21st century so far<\/a>. So, Brat Summer\u2019 may been a neon green Tik-Tok trend, but the album perfectly showcases how Romanticism influences art and culture today.<\/p>\n As Matt Sangster, an expert in 18th-century literature and material culture, writes in David Bowie and the Legacies of Romanticism<\/a>, \u201c[t]he ways that texts happened in the past are hugely important, but texts and the idea clusters they spawn are also fascinating for the complex ways that they continue to happen in our lives.\u201d Concerns inherited from the Romantics are evident in Brat, with its exploration of celebrity, nostalgia, nature, legacy and loss. Romanticism isn\u2019t stuck in the 19th century \u2013 it is alive today in the very places you may least expect.<\/p>\n
\n Brat by Charli XCX is a work of contemporary imagist poetry \u2013 and a reclamation of ‘bratty’ women’s art<\/a><\/p>\n
Used to sit in my bedroom, puttin\u2019 polish on my toe
Recently, I\u2019ve been thinkin\u2019 \u2018bout a way simpler time
Sometimes, I really think it would be cool to rewind. <\/p>\n
\n How to resolve friendship tension like Lorde and Charli XCX<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758922928_936_file-20250110-15-rdfnbz.png\")
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