“‘Please Please Please’ don’t make summer end,” is not only an accurate feeling felt by Charter students, but also a nod to a pop star who just recently gained fame over summer—Sabrina Carpenter. Over the past couple of months, artists like Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, and Sabrina Carpenter have been the epitome of pop music. With XCX’s song “Apple” taking TikTok and other social media apps by storm, it was only time for pop music to come back for a second wave and take over the music industry.
Carpenter first rose to fame for her character on Girl Meets World, Maya Hart. As she continued to act, she made albums on the side. Recently, Carpenter came to the spotlight because of her hit songs “Please Please Please” and “Espresso.” Both songs stayed on BBC’s Chart record for three weeks in the top three and rose to BillBoard’s Top 100 staying at number one for some time. As of now, Carpenter plans on releasing her album Short n’ Sweet, which includes the previously mentioned songs, on August 23rd, and many listeners are excited to see what she has next in store.
As for Chappell Roan, her pop songs “Good Luck, Babe!” and “Femininomenon” shaped summer in a whole new way. “Good Luck, Babe!” charted highly on the BillBoards top 100, and continues to make its way up, the highest being at number six amongst the top 10. The song’s upbeat persona matches the vibe that goes together with pop music. Her song is one of the most successful pop songs of the summer and will continue to be successful into the fall season. For “Femininomenon,” the song started up a new trend for people to voice their feministic views by putting “What we need is a femininomenon” over males to represent women in power. For example, putting that phrase over a video of Kamala Harris running for president against Donald Trump.
In addition to what Carpenter and Roan have done for pop, the one person who started this whole messy, or Brat, summer was Charli XCX, an English singer. XCX charted many of her songs from the Brat album like “Apple,” “360,” “365,” and more. Her unique pop brand has made her a new, hot topic for people to listen to despite her being behind some of the older pop songs that they had known from when they were younger like “Boom Clap” and “Break the Rules.” Junior Ciara Epstein comments on XCX reviving the pop industry by saying, “I think her rise to fame this past summer is really good for her career since she has had a bunch of other hit songs years ago that grew attention, and now her new album has just reached an even higher audience and has brought back the pop genre that everyone loves. I think she’s a very good artist and her music is so fun to listen to when you want to get hype! I like to listen to her when I get ready, or at a party.”
Not only has XCX changed the pop industry, but she has influenced and garnered a whole new fan—Kamala Harris. Once Harris announced her running for the 2024 Presidential election, Harris’ social media team changed her X, or Twitter, banner to the Brat album cover—a distinct neon green background with the words “brat” black and in the middle. XCX later tweeted, “kamala IS brat,” which endorsed Harris and helped her gain a new wave of voters.
In all the ways that Brat has been incorporated into sayings and vocabulary, there still needs to be the word “summer” attached to it. “Brat summer” is being used to describe people’s summer—but what does it mean? It is still unknown and only a mystery.
The way that Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan, and Charli XCX shaped and revived the pop industry these past couple of months has not gone unnoticed and will continue to allow for other new artists to be seen and heard.
