Welcome back. It’s been a long time since my last post in February, but I’m excited to come back on here to share some messy thoughts. Substack has really boomed since my hiatus and what felt like a niche corner of the internet has now firmly cemented itself in my media diet. With so many great writers on here I’m feeling inspired, so it’s fun to be back.
Today’s post will be a new format I’m trying. I’ll share what I’ve been reading, watching and generally observing from the week, straight to your inbox every (other?) Friday afternoon. Let me know if you enjoy.
Brat has become a Warholian experiment
It feels like practically every marketer has written about CharliXCX’s ‘Brat’ at some point in the last few months. Here are my thoughts on where we are now.
It’s closer an art project than music. Everyone, from Vice President Kamala Harris to your friend’s sister, has become a contributor to it; ‘Brat’, a word that now means everything and nothing at the same time.
Last week, in a crowd of just 100 people, I saw Toro Y Moi DJ at Cafe 1001 in London. Before ending with tracks from his anticipated new album ‘Hole Erth’ (it’s sounding really good), Toro played through a track-list not even his biggest fans could’ve predicted, from Alice Deejay ‘Better Off Alone’ to Kanye’s ‘Slow Jamz’.
But by far the best moment was when he spinned ‘365’. People screamed as it was mixed in. A guy jumped on a table in the back. People generally went crazy. For some of us, it was the first time hearing the music in the environment Charli had intended for - not on TikTok, not in AirPods, but in the club. It really worked. In part because the track’s great, but also because everyone there unanimously realised that they were witnessing and contributing to a cultural moment, in real time. And Charli wasn’t even there.
I’ve arrived at the word ‘Warholian’ to describe that feeling - a word that typically refers to something ‘pertaining to Andy Warhol, or his style or works’, but feels equally apt to describe the era of celebrity he came to represent, and one where culture seemed to be at it’s most ‘performed’. It was a time of heady stardom, from Mick Jagger and Cher to David Bowie, and one where culture was being shaped in front of everyone’s eyes. Simply put, if you weren’t at the parties, if you weren’t being photographed, then you weren’t part of it.
This reminds me a lot of the phase of social media we’re living through now. We all want to participate in culture, and we want to be seen to be doing so. Young people are experiencing a real post COVID urge to be part of something real, matched by the frustration that the pace of life doesn’t match the algorithms on their screens. It also explains why events and physical activations feel like they’re approaching peak again, from run clubs to denim exchanges.
Charli understands this. If her New York Boiler Room was the defining Studio 54 moment (not least because it was attended by a proto-Warholian clique of Julia Fox and Addison Rae and fictionalised through rumours of excessive drug use), then ‘Brat’ is Blondie’s ‘Parallel Lines’ or Donna Summer’s ‘Bad Girls’ — a soundtrack to a cultural moment that (unlike an exclusive club) has no barrier to entry.
But as it happens, neither does a colour (#8ace00), a dance, a digitally native lifestyle (‘Brat girl’), or your ability to follow an ever evolving cast, from George to AG Cook. The last few months have shown anyone (literally, anyone - Kamala) can participate in ‘Brat’. It’s up to you to decide to what degree.
I’ve been thinking about music projects on a scale of dimensionality, with Brat breaking into the ‘4D’ bucket:
2D: Music played to an audience. Pretty transactional. Exists as a listening experience, bound to real time.
3D: TikTok and digital channels allow music to be re-contextualised through remixes and user generated video. Ie. TikTok dances. Exists as music with added layer of performance. No longer bound to real time.
4D: The creation of an artistic world where the music is not as important as the idea it communicates. It exists as several things at once across both real and recorded time.
Brat’s longevity is down to its ‘4D’ approach that contrasts ‘2D’ streaming. By co-creating the initial release with her fans through IRL events, Charli engineered momentum around the invention and distribution of cultural codes, from the expert (knowing who The Dare is and using a Bic lighter) to the amateur (the word ‘Brat’ and shade of green). And unlike the former that require a level of intel, the latter are easier to grasp, taking on new meaning as they expand into the corners of popular culture.
This idea of letting go of the outcome is more common in art than music, and something Charli deliberately looked to explore with this project. Consider Marcel Duchamp’s ‘Creative Act’ speech from 1961:
“All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”
Very Brat.
So here we are. By creating a project that absorbs its own reception into its final form, Charli has created a Warholian cultural moment that feeds off contributions to keep it burning.
Toro playing ‘365’ was just another match on the fire.
The confusing popularity of brands with no ‘brand’
I’ve noticed a real rise of companies with great product but no obvious ‘brand’ recently. For someone who’s always been interested in the power brands have in our lives, I’ve honestly confused myself by being drawn in by some of these.
I have two in mind that won’t be named. Both have nailed their proposition - minimalist clothing, cropped silhouettes, pleated trousers, clean E-com imagery. It’s hard to disagree with. It’s timely, looks like good quality, and one even offers speedy 48 hour delivery. But you’d find it difficult to find a clear origin story to get excited about, content worth following for, or even find a community of fans online. They kind of just, sell?
I think this comes down to a general shift we’re seeing in product being the new black again, something we wrote about at SOTA recently. If your product is superior (whether that be in quality, trend timing or shipping speed), then it’s got a pretty good chance against an inferior one in a nice brand wrapper. This feeds into a wider tangent about consumers being smarter than they’ve ever been. Recent studies show 74% of Gen Z internet users use TikTok for search, including for reviews that inform a purchase decision.
What’s maybe more interesting is what this means for the state of ‘brand’ today. Nike’s recent downturn has been fascinating and provides good evidence that today having the strongest brand in the world can only get you so far. With so many other factors in the equation for success (On’s technological developments have been matched by their clever approach to wholesale accounts), does it really matter like it used to?
Of course it does. But in a year of tight budgets, more brands will be looking to put their marketing spend towards product innovation, supply chain etc. before taking big swings.
Side note: I’ve enjoyed watching Nike and Adidas battle it out with their Olympics campaigns on the billboards here in London. Excellent analysis of Nike’s new global effort here.
The curse of the mainstream death cycle
I’ve tactically put this point last to avoid Brat burn-out. But I am curious about the recent declaration of Brat summer dying an early death (the irony here is that speculation around its ending has prolonged its cultural lifespan?). This debate might’ve temporarily been put on hold with Billie Eilish’s ‘Guess’ remix, but there’s a wider conversation here around the loss in meaning that occurs when ideas go from niche to mainstream, something that’s happening repeatedly, and at record pace nowadays.
The predicted death of Brat summer is classic gate-keeping, a snobbery about its cultural IP getting in the hands of people fans don’t want involved. But when everyone from your mum to BBC News is discussing something that was born out of an 'IYKYK’ sensibility and inspired by niche hyper-online subcultures in Dalston and Bushwick, do we really expect it to keep its authenticity?
This X user commenting on Spotify’s ‘brat summer’ playlist put it perfectly:
*Insert wider conversation about the death of niches here.*
The speed at which the internet can take ideas from being small to mass has become pretty insane. It’s maybe unsurprising that 91% of Gen Z believe that mainstream culture no longer exists. Adidas Sambas, Salomon and Brat are all niche products that have expanded out of their original pockets of culture to become something new.
What’s the problem here? As I wrote for SOTA a few weeks ago, it’s becoming increasingly harder for smaller brands to know when and who to open their doors to. The difference between leaning into commercial success or not can be a matter of life or death for a brand, but so can the strain it puts on their cultural clout when it goes wrong.
Stussy, a brand founded in 1984 for hardcore surfers and skaters, now has a queue around the block of teenage girls who’ve found the brand through TikTok. My cousin, aged 12, knows what Corteiz is. That’s pretty unimaginable compared to even the peak of Supreme in London in, say 2015, when if you were outside of the culture, no one really cared.
Whether you’re CharliXCX or Supreme, I think it comes down to being intentional with your goal, knowing your core customer inside out and being open to pivot only when it makes sense. For now at least, Brat summer rolls on.
Some other findings
Your DJ’s favourite DJ Jobs Jobse released the mix of the summer
Until next time,
H
Really great analysis and loved the comparisons to Duchamp and Warhol.
First time reading, really dug it, especially the bit about 4D projects.
Feels notable how post Kendrick beef Drake drops his 100gigs site. Not to suggest he’s a closed door artist by any means but feels like he realizes he needs to brings his fans into the fold more. continue his shift from artist to brand, build in a public in some ways, etc.