People are underestimating how much money a label will throw at a release. Sure, its not the same as 20 or 30 years ago, but they still have budget for these artist. Charli was already well established, and prior to her album, she had some big features. Add to the mix, the non-binary thing that goes with her and PC music fans and artist, the rise of hyperpop in general, and its a gamble well worth taking for a label. Like i said, i know for a fact they had a budget, and all of the connections that come with that. A friend of mine is (was?) on a PR team for her, and while they wouldnt be able to quantify an exact budget, i asked and they guessed somewhere around 100k$

The album launched with a huge tiktok campaign, as well as being spotify playlisted, and a street style marketing of posters everywhere. Tiktok campaigns are not cheap. Some of these accounts charge well into the thousands, some of the bigger accounts ask 5-10k$ This doesnt even take into account producer fees, studio time, mixing and mastering etc.

 

Now do the promotional budgets of Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo & Chappell Roan. Nobody is saying that Charli XCX didn't have a budget, it's just the scale of it. Besides that, who could have predicted Brat would become a global phenomenon based on her previous chart history? $100K is about right considering her pervious success, but nobody was expecting her to take over the world!

 

Last edited: Nov 15, 2024

I would think that "they didnt chuck piles of money at it" translates to no budget, or a very small budget.

This is far from true. The majority of label releases have very little budget, if any at all. If your lucky, they will pay for mixing and mastering, a photoshoot, and a week long instagram ad. Label deals nowadays are more symbiotic in nature. They have connections for you, you have music for them (and hopefully a large tiktok following, a manager, tour agent, and you can produce, write, mix and master all of your own stuff lol)

You say here that Charli's success is based on innovation, but what innovation is that? To me, her success stems from hard work, dedication, and connections / label backing. She had a lot of success before this album. While her solo releases didnt chart well, many of her features did. She had a Number 1 billboard hit years ago, with iggy azalea, as well as other high charting hits AND at least one grammy nom that im aware of.

As far as predicting Brat would have the success it did, its not that hard to believe. Shes had many well received singles, both as an artist and as a feature. Hyperpop has exploded in recent years, and many of charli's collaborators have had success as well. The 100k number is just an assumption anyways, could be more, could be less. Who knows. i am curious tho, and am going to push to find out more lol.

Whats funny, is that Chappell Roan is the one who is more surprising here. She was dropped from her label, self released and then picked up by another major and EXPLODED almost overnight. She is one who i doubt had any budget, id be willing to bet Charli's was much higher than Chappell's, at least initially, who knows what they are throwing at her now.

Regardless, Charli is great, and im stoked for her recent success, and am rooting for her at the grammys, although i think Chappell Roan may beat her out in some of the categories. Charli will probably win best Dance Album, but it should be Four Tet

Also, sorry if my train of thought is a bit all over the place. Im on some heavy medication and am a bit wonky right now lol. Need to bump Brat and wake up.

 

I'm not sure if the PC Music crew were involved in the promotion & marketing, but Atlantic Records were doing distribution and the budget would be in line with that. Let me know what you find out

 

Last edited: Nov 15, 2024

nah fam, Zenarcist got it on that. im currently an artist signed with one of the big three major labels (Sony) and the star players on the team, definitely get the max contracts lol. its like a bank, Olivia walks in there wanting a business loan, her credit with bank is fantastic, she’ll get what she asks for. Charli wasnt getting what Olivia could get for sure yo

its different on indie labels but in general we get three different budgets: a recording budget, a marketing and merchandise budget and touring budget, with the largest sum going to your tour. all of that comes from the pool of the labels artist budget for that year. the more commercially successful artists get the bigger share from that pool. the more money the label makes, the bigger that pool is they get from the parent company (Sony, Universal, Warner, etc.) and more people can release projects. (unless you put money up for your own release, which majority of artist signed with major labels arent) - after you finish your project and let some of the A&R’s hear it. you have a meeting with the marketing department, they have a whole system of calculating projections for how much money theyll loan you for marketing and merchandise. its based on things that he mentioned, hes not wrong, that how it works

$100k is still not a lot for a major label artist to get offered, im positive it was more than that, doesnt mean she took all of it though. music videos alone to promote singles can easily cost over $100k, thats why so many artist take the Vevo incentive, because they put money up if you let them host it. her videos arent on some indie shit either, she has a location at the airport in one lol; actors, set pieces, like that shit adds up. on top of paying for editing, the equipment they use, whose directing it and this that and the third. - unless her PR team is from Atlantic, shes likely paying them with her marketing budget as well. so if she only used $100k that impressive

 

This album review sums up the situation before the Brat release.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/charli-xcx/charli-xcx-triumphs-through-pop-catharsis-on-brat

 

Last edited: Nov 16, 2024

In the sense they could find golden cow to milk, sure, you can do that too with some attractive girl, my Facebook feed is full of this types that attract enough traffic. Bonus points if she's pretending to make music not just dancing in front of DJ setup, look little nerdy, have some crazy hair color and tatoo's, give her FL too for ultimate underdog women empowering vibes. Coin some new genre, like HoeCore and let the horny men do the rest.

 

Last edited: Nov 16, 2024

@Zenarcist : mmm…theres some false narratives with stuff like usual with editorials, like: “its the first time she worked with an A&R” lol - shes been under Warner her whole career, its an essential part of being an artist on a label is working with an A&R. they help you get things done within the label, because people (especially executives) listen to them. if you want to release something with a major label, you work with an A&R in the process (doesnt mean they have any creative control)

but yo i watched some of this when it first came out, this is from her not from some editor since youre a fan now. i time stamped it to so start where she talks about her reasoning with CRASH towards the beginning and approaches before brat. she also talks about her marketing approach for brat at some point (which is why i wanted to watch it). apparently shes really passionate about marketing from what i remember

timestamp isnt working here but it starts at 6:42

 

I'm not a pill though.

 

Yep what else can you do with a brat like that than beat on it with a baseball bat.

 

it really shows that this website is full of 40 year olds

 

Mmm. Nah fam. I don't fuck with anyone less than 80. Now that you're a fan of 40 yo kids, let me set something straight with you- if you're not at least 90 you don't know what a record deal is. I know because I'm from one of the big 3 bands (The Beatles) and we always had our A&R guy talk with the suits and score us our liquor because unless you are at least a hundred twenty five years old, you don't know the first thing about prohibition.

 

okay.

anyways, if you get to the point where the only thing you can say about music is that its unlistenably bad like other people in this thread have done, maybe you simply arent willing to interact with the art on its own terms. this isnt to say that you have to like this music, god knows i hate a lot of music myself, but it feels like many people tend to want to ridicule something they find terrible rather than discuss an art form. when i was a kid i used to think rap was "unlistenable garbage", and it turns out all i needed to do is let myself get swept up in it. judging something as subjective as music is a telltale sign of close-mindedness.

 

couldnt agree more.

 

40? Could you please elaborate?

 

So Charli has just crushed all the year end polls for the best album of 2024. Well done Charli XCX!

 

Bumpin' that

 

Bumping this

 

Pink Cocaine by P.Diddy, didn't even show up, not even in the SuperBowl drug testing. somethins up.

 

Fully agree (and i'm approaching my 40s btw).
I personally think a lot of hyperpop is overrated, it's not as boundary-breaking or innovative as the fans think. It basically just satisfies the inner urge of cool art school students to hear catchy pop music. Sure, it mixes some more underground electronic genres with it, but it's basically just riding the nostalgia wave as everything nowadays as it seems, mixing old hits with fresh beats. Back then when PC music started it was more about late 90s, then it moved to the y2k trend.

Besides that, all the people claiming they could easily produce something like that or that "this sounds like something they have in the trash folder" are wrong. Only because this music may sound simple on the surface, doesn't mean it is easy to make a song these kids would like.
Making music that sounds obviously digital/ like software and using less reverb or similar fx is one thing, but doing it in a way that sounds good and listenable is another one, and if you listen closely there is a little bit more to it than random, dry "experimental" sounds over a beat. Doing the right choices is extremely important.