Am I too old to join in?

Tracey Thorn has shared her own review of a recent concert by Charli XCX, whom she declares as an “artist of the moment”.

In a review published by The New Statesman, the Everything But The Girl singer wrote at length about attending a Charli XCX concert, namely her star-studded London show at The O2, an event she described as having a mood that was “chaotic, euphoric, a bit messy, a bit frantic and drunkenly tearful.”

“A recent London show proved ‘Brat’ is the album of the year, and she is the artist of the moment,” Thorn wrote in its subhead. “Am I too old to join in?”

She continued, pondering: “Am I too old to like Charli XCX? It’s a bit naff isn’t it, people my age going on about a “brat summer”, thinking it makes them down with the kids.”

She reflected on the idea of music-loving parents attending shows by artists with primarily younger fans, like Mitski and The Last Dinner Party – the latter whose cancelled Lincoln gig attracted minor controversy for the behaviour of its security staff towards a handful of adult male ticketholders.

“I suppose the worry is that there’s something predatory about a person of my age liking younger artists,” Thorn wrote, adding that she has talked at length before about “wanting more music that reflects the stage of life I’m at now”.

In a 2023 interview with NME, to promote Everything But The Girl’s latest album ‘Fuse’, Thorn said: “We live in the same world. We may be older and have made music in previous eras, but we are alive right now and subject to the inspiration that comes with that.”

Thorn continued in her review: “I also love music that makes me feel young, or reminds me what it felt like to be young. This year, I have really loved Charli’s album ‘Brat’, but in terms of it making me feel young, I wonder, how young do I mean?”

Thorn compared Charli’s current age of 32 upon release of ‘Brat’ – “Not a teenager, not a young girl. A young woman” – with her own life at 32 when Everything But The Girl released ‘Missing’, “the song that would be the biggest hit of my life and get more attention than anything else I’ve ever written”.

She then mused on the similarities between ‘Missing’ and the Lorde remix of ‘Girl, so confusing’: “[‘Missing’] is similarly fixated on that transitional life moment – a dance-floor anthem about longing for a childhood friend, while also feeling angst about being unable to ‘move on’.”

Thorn then turned her attention to the O2 concert: “I was worried we might have to do the “Apple” dance – choreography that went viral on social media when the album was released – but no, of course not.”

“Instead we see some brief video of Charli’s boyfriend George in the crowd, trying to do the dance but getting it a bit wrong and laughing. Which is of course much more ‘Brat’ than coerced audience participation.” Thorn awards the concert as “a triumphant and well-deserved celebration of the album of the year”.

“The gig didn’t make me feel young, but it made me feel alive, and I’ll take that, thanks.” Read the full review here.

‘Brat’ was Charli’s sixth studio album and was released in June, drawing from club and rave music and coming with a striking and immediately iconic lime green cover, with pixelated Arial font lowercase wording.

Tracks like ‘360’ and ‘Apple’ had their own viral TikTok crazes, while a remix album ‘Brat And It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat’ landed in October, finally bringing Charli to Number One.

‘Brat’ was named the Word Of The Year by the Collins English Dictionary, a word it said had been redefined by the phenomenon, with its new definition being: “characterised by a confident, independent and hedonistic attitude”.

‘Brat’ summer even became a factor in the 2024 US presidential election when Charli tweeted “Kamala IS brat”. The vice-president’s social media was rebranded in the ‘Brat’ aesthetic, leading to an an embarrassing wave of serious political pundits trying and failing to explain the ‘Brat’ phenomenon.

Charli is currently on a UK victory lap tour for her whirlwind year, where she recently debuted her remix of ‘So I’ in tribute to SOPHIE.