{"id":351597,"date":"2025-08-17T12:22:21","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/351597\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T12:22:21","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T12:22:21","slug":"does-charli-xcx-need-to-pull-a-ziggy-stardust-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/351597\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Charli XCX need to pull a Ziggy Stardust move?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Does<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy \/ Charli XCX)<\/p>\n

Sun 17 August 2025 6:00, UK <\/p>\n

On February 10th, 1972, David Bowie first appeared as Ziggy Stardust. On February 27th, 2024, Charli XCX<\/a> released \u2018Von Dutch\u2019, the opening single from her Brat era. These two things have absolutely nothing in common except for one suggestion \u2013 a possible ending. <\/p>\n

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.<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s own aesthetic and energy. Then, on July 3rd, 1973, Bowie killed him off. <\/a><\/p>\n

Ziggy\u2019s eulogy had been there from the start. As that July show was wrapped up with Bowie outright announcing, \u201cOf 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\u2019s the last show that we\u2019ll ever do. Thank you\u201d. He finished with \u2018Rock and Roll Suicide\u2019; 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\u2019s finale to arrive. <\/p>\n

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, \u2018Rock and Roll Suicide\u2019 and Charli XCX\u2019s stage design have nothing in common except a suggestion \u2013 is Charli\u2019s Brat cover, and the fact that it is growing more and more ripped by the show<\/a>, her own in-built eulogy? <\/p>\n

\"Brat<\/a>(Credits: Far Out \/ Atlantic Recording Company)<\/p>\n

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\u2019t the end. The show instead wrapped up with her screens asking the same questions, wondering, \u201cSo tell me the truth, will you hate me if I stick around?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s publicly stated that she is \u201cinterested in the tension of staying too long\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

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 \u201cit\u2019s okay to just admit that you\u2019re jealous of me\u201d as if she\u2019s 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\u2019d 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?<\/p>\n

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\u2019s producers, said that what\u2019s next is shaping up to be something completely \u201canti-Brat\u201d. <\/p>\n

He shared, \u201cThere is a desire in her to do the complete opposite thing again, which is very in keeping with her ethos.\u201d <\/p>\n

How does she get her fans to follow along with that change, though? As a hurdle artists routinely run into when they\u2019re 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\u2019t still want you to be him.<\/p>\n

If you kill Brat, the lime green has to die off and leave space for something new.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy \/ Charli XCX) Sun 17 August 2025 6:00, UK On February 10th, 1972,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[124233,4157,77,1039,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-351597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-brat","9":"tag-david-bowie","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-homepage","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115044086688792620","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}