A. G. Cook and Finn Keane on what sets Charli XCX apart – and what makes something ‘Brat’
A. G. Cook and Finn Keane – two of the producers behind Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ – have spoken to NME about what it was like to work on the album, as well as revealing the thing that sets her apart from everyone else.
The two worked alongside Charli and her fiancé – producer, soloist and The 1975 member George Daniel – to create the hit album, which has become a cultural phenomenon since its release back in June.
Even ahead of its release, the simple lime green artwork became a meme, and fans on social media quickly embraced the record’s hedonistic aesthetic and attitude. It has also received support from Kamala Harris (who used it in her US presidential election campaign) and Barack Obama, who included tracks in his summer playlist, as well as many more.
In a four-star review of ‘Brat’, NME described the project as “painting a picture of who XCX is in 2024”.
“Growing pains, grief and aching doubts come alongside self-confidence, celebration and the knowledge of the place XCX holds in the musical landscape,” it read. “Indeed, she kicks off ‘360’ with the knowing: ‘I went my own way and I made it / I’m your favourite reference baby‘. With ‘Brat’, XCX demonstrates that going her own way will always sound pretty good.”
Now, after being shortlisted for the 2024 Mercury Prize, Cook and Keane caught up with NME on the red carpet, and explained what it was like to work with Charli on the record, as well as explaining what it is about the singer that sets her apart – and if anyone predicted the huge global response.
NME: Hi A. G. Cook and Finn Keane. tell us a bit about what it was like to work on ‘Brat’.
A. G. Cook: “This album was very different to work on than pretty much everything else that I’ve taken part in because it was so focused and relentless. Charli really has this clear vision. We knew it was going to be called ‘Brat’ for the entire two years of making it, and we cut anything that wasn’t ‘Brat. If it didn’t feel ‘Brat’, it was gone! We’d barely even talk about it again out of embarrassment of it not being ‘Brat’ enough.”
Finn Keane: “Charli always has a vision of where she is and where she wants to go, but with this, I think it was more than ever.”
When you were working on the record, did you have a feeling that it was going to become as successful as it did?
Keane: “When you’re working on something you can never really think like that to be honest. You just try to make the strongest and most confident music you can, and push it to make it better than anything you’ve done before. We could never predict something like what happened with ‘Brat’.”
Cook: “Even the rollout for this felt quite different though! From having a Boiler Room that happened in the middle of it, the energy of the videos… even in the small gaps between songs before the album came out – there was this sense that it was going to be more than the sum of its parts. From the beginning, it was more than just the album itself. The tracks, the lyrics, the feeling behind it all — it meant something.”
What separates Charli from other artists at the moment?
Keane: “The thing I loved about working with Charli is that she’s so instinctive in the way she works. She works really really fast, and if we’re bored by something, we’ll just move on. We can make a very very quick album in the room and it’s like if we’re excited, great, we’ll flesh that out later. If we’re not, we’ll just move on and try something else. That for me is so exciting because it’s really hard to find artists with the confidence to work like that.
Cook: “It’s the pure speed. That’s what ‘Speed Drive’ is about! They did that in like one minute!”
Keane: “We did ‘Speed Drive’ and ‘Von Dutch’ in one day. It was quite a chill session too, probably about four hours, to give you a sense of how quickly Charli can work.”
There have been so many talking points since the record’s release – is there one in particular that stands out to you?
Cook: “I feel like we’ve all been constantly caught off-guard. We’d have to be insane to predict everything that happened!”
Keane: “Yeah, there have been so many things, but probably NATO doing a story saying ‘Peace’ in the ‘Brat’ green. What was going on there? That was crazy! Kamala Harris is there too obviously…”
Cook: “What is so fun about the album is that, even though there are all these crazy things orbiting it, it can still be traced back to some actual genuine meaning. There’s the attitude of the lyrics, the sense of fun, and the true emotion that is underlying. It’s also paradoxical and such a nice representation of what it’s like to listen to pop music in 2024. It has a genuine essence of what things are like right now.”
When you were in the studio, what determined if something was ‘Brat’?
Cook: “We had that album title in place and on a pedestal for the entire time. Fairly early on we were talking to Charli about having this bold logo for it. The green came along a little later, but we always knew it would be this maximalist-minimalist object. We had that the whole time and any reference [to ‘Brat’] was filtered through that.
“It was in the lyrical focus too, Charli has always written interesting lyrics, but these had this diaristic intensity. That is across all of the songs and is something she was challenging herself to do.”
Keane: “It was her vision from the beginning. She was the one to say if it was ‘Brat’ or not. [Before this album], when she had written lyrics, she might have thought of the melody first and then found the words that really fit. But this time she was very consciously aware of what she wanted to say and be as brutally honest as possible. It was a very different process. Sometimes she’d have two sets of lyrics to make sure she went for something that was completely right and completely honest. “
Are you ready for ‘Brat’ Summer to end?
Keane: “Yes. I think it’s great. I think that there is always wammo in the ‘Brat’ cannon so it’ll be fine.”
Cook: “I think a ‘Brat’ holiday is worthwhile now.”
Also shortlisted for this year’s Mercury Prize were albums by The Last Dinner Party, CMAT, Ghetts, Corinne Bailey Rae, Beth Gibbons, Barry Can’t Swim and more. However, it was Leeds band and former NME Cover stars English Teacher who achieved victory at the Abbey Road ceremony, and became the first non-London winner of the award in a decade.
In other Charli XCX news, earlier this week the American Heart Association revealed that a few songs on the ‘Brat’ soundtrack are the correct tempo for hands-only CPR.
Shortly before then, the singer declared an end to ‘Brat’ summer and teased a new remix on TikTok as she prepares to head into “Brat Autumn”. The new track appears to sample Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’ and would follow on from the Billie Eilish-featuring remix of ‘Guess’.
She has since teased that she has been working in the studio alongside the likes of Bon Iver and Danielle Haim, and that a “full-length other project,” is in the works but didn’t confirm if it would be a remix album. “But it’s definitely in the bratosphere, so to speak,” she said.
The singer has also been cast in upcoming film I Want Your Sex, directed by Gregg Araki in his first feature film in over a decade.
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Liberty Dunworth
NME
