Charli XCX’s electropop album brat has blown up online. The album’s signature neon green and blurry Arial Narrow font has been used as advertising fodder for Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign, plant-based brat-wursts, and an MTA subway closure. Charli even got her fans to watch paint dry, hosting Instagram lives for the repainting of her Greenpoint brat wall.
But at its heart, brat is a club album. Charli herself described closer track, “365”, as walking through a superclub, changing the beat to reflect trips from the dance floor to the bathroom. It’s no surprise, then, that nightlife has seen a certain bump. With themed brat raves and drinks, clubs are profiting off the album’s instant classic status.
“It’s great that there’s an album pushing electro and dance music into the mainstream, because we haven’t had that for a while,” says New York DJ and event producer Ty Sunderland. “It’s definitely pushing club culture.”
How brat reinvigorated nightlife
Sunderland was on the brat beat before the meme explosion. He’s been hosting his summer “Gayflower” party series for seven years now; the New York boat has been host to a number of artist-themed parties, including an infamous Britney Spears-themed event with a “demon twink” on board. This year, he landed on the idea of a brat boat before the album had even come out.
“It sold out immediately,” Sunderland says. “It was the most hectic boat I’ve had in a long time. Everyone was being very bratty.”
The boat held 600 people—almost immediately after opening ticket sales, those spots had been taken. What he was not expecting was the much younger crowd. He describes it as a “kids who just moved to New York vibe,” with the boat-goers exclusively there for the brat tracks.
“They didn’t even want the earlier Charli stuff,” Sunderland says. “I played ‘detonate’ from how i’m feeling now, and I was like, ‘how does no one know this song?’”
The Brooklyn Bowl hosted their own “Club Brat” in partnership with Club 90s. The event saw over 500 people attend, dressed up in their brat green. The venue’s marketing manager Hannah Nobbe was especially excited to see the diverse crowd of young women.
“The last year or two has really been focused on Taylor Swift and Eras. . . . I think that Charli offers a different perspective on womanhood,” Nobbe says. “Charli appeals to a much broader audience.”
“The more queer you are, the more brat you are”
Gay bars and clubs seem to be particularly benefiting from the brat bump. Luis Fernando is a staple of the New York queer nightlife scene. He produces The Rosemont’s weekly ZOO nights, as well as the popular Fruit Factory day parties at The Crown rooftop. For both of these series, Fernando has done brat events, with each party touting upwards of 400 attendees. That’s unusually high, he says, for a summer club night.
“All of my parties have gained from it,” Fernando says. “People want to be in a very tiny space where they’re listening to ‘365’ or ‘Guess.’ The album has less than 20 songs, you can’t always play them, but people don’t care. They want to listen again and again.”
The bump is especially appreciated in the slow summer, when many club-goers travel and attendance goes down. “This summer has been much stronger in terms of numbers,” Fernando says. “People go to Fire Island, they travel to see family, but this summer has been different [because] people want to be at the club.”
Steven Bosque, bar manager at Hell’s Kitchen hotspot Hardware, echoes a similar thought. Hardware recently had their bartenders wear green brat tees, along with the employees of sister gay bars Pieces, Playhouse, and Balcon. They wanted in on the brat fever.
“July is a very tricky month in nightlife, when everyone’s out of town,” Bosque says. “[brat] brings the room to life. It’s made the vibe better.”
Ultimately, brat is all about messy self-expression and freedom, making it prime fodder for queer people. Charli XCX has had a historically queer fanbase—after all, she did go viral for shouting “gay rights!” while holding a bottle of poppers in 2019. Still, brat has a specifically queer connotation: “The more queer you are, the more brat you are,” Fernando says.
For these nightlife venues, brat summer is far from dead. Fernando will keep hosting his brat parties: this week, his ZOO event is an underwear party tied to Charli’s new “Guess” video with Billie Eillish. Hundreds more will flood The Rosemont to do the “Apple” dance one more time.