(Credits: Far Out / Alamy / Charli XCX)
Sun 17 August 2025 6:00, UK
On February 10th, 1972, David Bowie first appeared as Ziggy Stardust. On February 27th, 2024, Charli XCX released ‘Von Dutch’, the opening single from her Brat era. These two things have absolutely nothing in common except for one suggestion – a possible ending.
On June 16th, 1972, after a few months of freaking out and fascinating crowds, Ziggy Stardust was truly born with the release of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. This was the moment when Bowie unleashed what was his first and remains his most well-known era. The character skyrocketed him to new scales of success, partially because it gave him what his discography had been lacking until this point, which was an unmistakable brand.
Ziggy was obvious and understandable for the fans. It gave them a story to follow, an energy to buy into and even a dress code to follow them when they came to his gigs. It was a well-rounded moment with it’s own aesthetic and energy. Then, on July 3rd, 1973, Bowie killed him off.
Ziggy’s eulogy had been there from the start. As that July show was wrapped up with Bowie outright announcing, “Of all the shows on this tour, this particular show will remain with us the longest, because not only is it the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do. Thank you”. He finished with ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’; a track that seemed to have been there on the album for this exact purpose as if it was just waiting for the day of Ziggy’s finale to arrive.
At the beginning of each show Charli XCX has performed during her Brat era, the lime green album cover is revealed on a giant flag. Once again, ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’ and Charli XCX’s stage design have nothing in common except a suggestion – is Charli’s Brat cover, and the fact that it is growing more and more ripped by the show, her own in-built eulogy?
(Credits: Far Out / Atlantic Recording Company)
When she set it on fire at Glastonbury, it felt like it was. From the crowd, I felt certain that this was it. This was the moment that Brat will end, and something new will emerge, like Ziggy dying and Aladdin Sane saying hello. But it wasn’t the end. The show instead wrapped up with her screens asking the same questions, wondering, “So tell me the truth, will you hate me if I stick around?”
It is clear that Charli XCX is teasing something as these finale graphics, wondering about the length of time this era has left, grow more and more cryptic, and her Brat backing gets more ruined. She’s publicly stated that she is “interested in the tension of staying too long” and is curious about how long the world might allow her to eke out this moment. But perhaps what this chapter needs is something bold. Maybe it needs a Ziggy Stardust funeral instead of a fade out.
However, that argument suggests that Brat is a character when clearly, it is not. While the biggest tracks on the album might suggest it is, as Charli struts around declaring “it’s okay to just admit that you’re jealous of me” as if she’s some uber-bitch, the actual full-picture record is starkly personal. Across the tracks, she mused on everything from the loss of her collaborator Sophie to even the question of whether she wants to have children and how, as a woman in a tough industry, she’d make that work. As an album, it is too personal to be a concept piece like Ziggy Stardust was, so how does Charli kill Brat when Brat is nothing but her at its core?
Charli XCX is as talented as she is multi-faceted though so inevitably, something new and different will come. Finn Keane, one of the album’s producers, said that what’s next is shaping up to be something completely “anti-Brat”.
He shared, “There is a desire in her to do the complete opposite thing again, which is very in keeping with her ethos.”
How does she get her fans to follow along with that change, though? As a hurdle artists routinely run into when they’re ready to leap into something new but their crowd are still stuck in whatever came before, perhaps in the end, the only answer is violence. If you kill Ziggy Stardust, your fans can’t still want you to be him.
If you kill Brat, the lime green has to die off and leave space for something new.
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