‘White powder’ Brat vinyl outrage is lame: It’s not Charli XCX’s job to be anyone’s role model

2024 was the year where Charli XCX moved from being the underground, party scene and music fanatic’s underrated darling to a fully fledged household name. Charli started out in raves when she was 14, with her parents chaperoning, and after years of creating dance music that garnered critical acclaim and pushed the boundaries of pop for those who bothered to listen to it – she made the world have a Brat summer without compromising her artistic integrity. Brat was and is Charli XCX at maximalist full throttle – a hedonistic album that’s obnoxious, arrogant and introspective and anxious. It’s all the spectrum of how one might feel after ingesting a copious amount of cocaine, and Brat is acknowledging it unsubtly across its entire tracklist. Even my nan knows that getting on the sesh is a big part of Brat – and yet, with the reaction to a limited edition Brat vinyl coming out that features a white powder inside it, you’d think this was all brand new information. Charli XCX signing off on a Brat vinyl filled with white powder is creating a pearl clutching, moral panic response on social media that I find totally beguiling.

VAULT OPEN! Hot on the heels of her cultural phenom BRAT, @charli_xcx delivers ‘brat and it’s completely different’, a remix project pressed exclusively to white powder filled LP with white second disc: https://t.co/MLSS3xGpNH pic.twitter.com/58ia8Fm2pW

— Blood Records (@BloodRecs) January 30, 2025

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The Brat vinyl containing the white powder is not the main edition of the record released by Charli XCX, but a limited edition release for collectors. It’s been created by Bad World – a company who specialise in unusual vinyl presses. You may remember the company as the ones behind the Saltburn vinyl filled with cloudy “bath water”. Bad World also made a “diamond” filled press for Elton John’s greatest hits, and a “honey” filled one for Troye Sivan’s Something To Give Each Other. It’s almost like these products exist to be tongue in cheek and create conversation!

I really hate to be that “too woke” friend but the glamourising of drugs that this “era” has brought is in fact really boring. As someone who’s watched people’s lives be destroyed by drugs both in my personal life and in work, it seems so damaging in my opinion https://t.co/0R0feSR3cU

— eilidh 🙂 (@folkloreilidh) January 30, 2025

And yet, despite Brat being a HUGE record and one of its most popular tracks featuring “should we do a little key, should we do a little line” with a refrain of “bumpin’ that” – this specific gimmick has seemingly been a touch too far for some online. One viral tweet (from a Swiftie) says “”I really hate to be that ‘too woke’ friend but the glamourising of drugs that this ‘era’ has brought is in fact really boring. As someone who’s watched people’s lives be destroyed by drugs both in my personal life and in work, it seems so damaging in my opinion.”

Similar sentiments have been shared on TikTok – with people in recovery discussing how they think it’s wrong for an artist to “promote” or “glamourise” drug taking. I understand that substances are a sensitive area for people and with good reason, but find the discourse centring on Charli XCX here bizarre. Did anyone listen to the album?

Art doesn’t have to be in the right. Charli XCX does not exist to help anyone make responsible decisions, and she doesn’t exist to parent your children either. Cries of “think of the children” because of a gimmicky vinyl that exists for marketing purposes is no different to me than when interviewers used to ask Britney Spears how she felt about children seeing her do a provocative dance routine or sing about sex. Musicians, pop stars, video games – it’s a tale as old as time.

Charli XCX signed off on this white powder Brat vinyl to be provocative. She will, presumably, be chuckling away at herself at the outrage – especially as she’s watched a song that features numerous references to the drug in question become one of her biggest hits. You don’t have to do much research to see any Charli XCX Brat era interview to know that she has cooked up this entire ethos and marketing strategy for an album where she is a persona of the most extreme and hard partying version of herself. You do not have to be the hero on your own album – and Brat is definitely not a heroic record. It’s euphoric, but at a cost.

I can’t help but feel like there’s a Conservative attitude to the pearl clutching that is not only anti-Brat, but a dangerous line to tread when it comes to art. One comment on a particularly critical TikTok says, very aptly “This video is a bit of a slippery slope where we start meddling in censorship. Charli XCX didn’t invent putting drug references on album covers. The Cramps, Janis Joplin, Pusha T and so on.”

glamorizing underwear on national tv when my third uncle literally died from his addiction to panties she’s SO weird

pic.twitter.com/g82cn0X9fu

— mateo🫀 (@melofknblonde) February 4, 2025

At her Grammys performance, Charli XCX downed a glass of champagne and threw the glass so it shattered on the floor. Was this performance glamouring reckless behaviour? Obviously, this is sycophantic – but it is also true in the sense that Charli XCX has never said she wants to be idolised. She has never planned to be a role model or put herself out there as such. It is wrong to put any pop star on such a pedestal and hold them account for anything.

If you go to a Charli XCX tour, if you see her at a festival – people will be taking drugs. Whether you release a limited edition vinyl of music that isn’t aimed at kids or not, that doesn’t change. If the sight of a fake powder in a vinyl is influencing anyone to take drugs that they otherwise wouldn’t normally do, the problem never lies with the artist.

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