Hello and welcome to Working It.
I’m Bethan Staton, Work and Careers deputy editor, standing in for Isabel.
This week, Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris turned her X account chartreuse green, in reference to the Charli XCX album Brat. The move represented a new level of influence for the pop star, who appeared to back Harris’s pitch: “Kamala IS Brat” she posted on her own account.
And it wasn’t just Brat. The Harris’s campaign also posted a TikTok declaring her campaign a “femininomenon”, a reference to the opening track of Chappell Roan’s album Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. Could this be the high point of Pop Girl Summer, as it delivers a moment of fun and femme music amid the messy and chaotic energy of the news cycle this summer?
The FT’s Life & Art podcast digs into the femininomenon (sorry), and the lore of Chappell and Charli, here. But because this is a work newsletter, I’m interested in these girls’ careers, and the idiosyncratic routes to success that, I think, are a big part of their appeal. Read on for more . . .
Good luck, Babe!
If you need a Wednesday pick-me-up, you could do worse than searching “Before and after Chappell Roan”.
The 26-year-old’s recent rise to fame has been extraordinary. In just a few months she’s gone from short of 2mn monthly Spotify listeners, according to Chartmetric, to more than 34mn as per Spotify today. Videos of her playing small venues last year, then performing the same songs as tens of thousands sing along at this summer’s US festivals, make her look like an overnight success.
She’s not. Roan (real name Kayleigh Rose Amstutz) was first signed to a label when she was 17, on the back of songs she posted on YouTube. But it didn’t work out: in 2020 she was dropped by her label, moving back from Los Angeles to her parents’ home in Missouri and working in a doughnut shop.
She has spent the years since working quietly to create music that is more fun, original and more herself, attracting a loyal fan base and becoming a slow-burn success. Signing with a new label from collaborator Dan Nigro, she toured with Olivia Rodrigo, the first of many high-profile and viral gigs that have sent her snowballing.
Glory is more familiar for Charli XCX (aka Charlotte Emma Aitchison) who started out playing east London raves as a teenager: her last album, Crash, was #1 album in the UK in 2022. But she’s always been a bit of an outlier, making glitchy, experimental pop that hasn’t always sold massively. Her insecurity about it crops up on Brat, where she compares herself to megastars, wonders if she “deserves commercial success” and sings about being “famous but not quite”.
For Roan, it was a failure that ultimately catapulted her career. Her label dropped her in 2020 shortly after she wrote “Pink Pony Club”, a joyous banger inspired by a night at an LA gay club. It underperformed on release. But it marked a turning point to the musical style that’s made her name — camp, witty and very gay. “It feels like I was right all along,” she told The Tonight Show.
Charli XCX has voiced similar sentiments. She made Brat with “no sacrifices” leaning into frenetic tunes and exposing lyrics. The FT’s review described it as a “seedbed of pop conceptualism”; the 31-year-old told Billboard the lime green aesthetic was designed to be “disgusting”. “There’s always fear when it comes to sticking your neck out or doing something which is unconventional,” she has said. “My suspicions about what might work were right.”
Of course, both artists have worked extremely hard, not least on savvy promotion. The Brat campaign worked so well because the team was so “bullish and laser-focused on every single . . . thing”, Charli XCX told GQ.
They also don’t work alone. Roan credits her success to the support of her queer community and has sought to pay it forward by booking drag queens as warm-up acts and speaking out on LGBT+ issues. Charli XCX’s best work (in my opinion) is in collaboration with artists associated with hyperpop collective PC Music, and on Brat she pays tribute to Sophie, the influential producer who died in 2021. Her shows are all about her, but pay attention and you might notice that famous friends do a lot of mixing and performing too — a lesson in delegation.
So, two pop stars have had up-and-down careers, finally achieved huge fame by backing their own boundary-pushing creative ideas, and stuck with the collaborators they really click with. It might not seem super relevant if you’re an accountant or stacking shelves.
But I do think these women’s ambivalent relationships with success and acclaim have lessons for everyday careers. They’re a reminder that it’s really common to not be fully recognised or validated at work. That it can pay off to eschew some goals to develop creative projects; and that ideas of “making it” are often relative. We can find fulfilment and solidarity in our work, even if the final product looks different from what we first expected.
Or you could just consider adopting the spirit of Charli XCX’s approach and get a “little messy” at work. Be, as she says on TikTok, someone “who feels like herself but maybe also has a breakdown, but kind of like parties through it [who] is honest, very blunt, a little bit volatile, does dumb things. But it’s brat.”
Have you got any girl pop recommendations or work lessons we can glean from Brat Summer? Email me at bethan.staton@ft.com
This week on the Working It podcast
We all experience peaks and troughs in our energy levels over the course of a working day. How can we make sure those natural rhythms don’t get in the way of our work? In this week’s episode of the podcast, Isabel spoke to Daniel Pink, author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, to find out why some of us work better at different times of day. Plus, producer Mischa Frankl-Duval talks to Box chief executive Aaron Levie, who has learned to make the most of his night owl tendencies.
Five top stories from the world of work
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Veuve Clicquot CEO: ‘Let’s break the chains to consuming champagne’: Is this the real champagne socialism? Probably not, but I really enjoyed this interview with Jean-Marc Gallot on democratising the rarefied tipple and the opposition he’s faced from his industry along the way.
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Crisis simulations force executives to make better decisions under stress: With the latest frontier of VR training, technology can help workers practice new skills or responsibilities in a risk-free environment. This story also explores whether leadership is now more about crisis management than anything else.
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The quiet rise of Nick Pickles at Elon Musk’s X: A Yorkshireman is now among the most influential people at the business formerly known as Twitter. Some speculate he could even be the company’s next CEO. This profile gives a bit more detail on the man, such as the fact he ran to be Conservative MP in 2010.
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Kamala Harris, a Gen X woman with Gen Z appeal: This piece begins to break down why the likely Democratic nominee is on the rise, and there is plenty more on the meat of her policy on FT.com too.
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Italy is tying itself in knots over business gender quotas: An all-male list of nominees for the board of Italian state-owned investor Cassa Depositi e Prestiti has highlighted how “casual unthinking patriarchy” still divides Italian society. In the words of one senator, “a female prime minister is not enough if power remains in the hands of men”.
One more thing
If the week’s newsletter has left you wanting more, I’ve made a playlist of my favourite pop girl tracks of the last couple of years. These women are now at the top of their game, but their careers are pretty interesting — dig a bit deeper here, and in their back catalogues, and you’ll find stories about agonising over status, balancing success with artistic freedom or struggling with the pressures of work. And some are just fun! Please send any that you think should be added to the list to bethan.staton@ft.com
