Charli xcx’s “party 4 u” is having a serious moment. Peaking in popularity between June 8-14 and gaining hundreds of millions of streams, the track that previously languished in relative obscurity seemed to be at the forefront of Charli’s new wave of fans’ minds. But as the high tide of “BRAT” raises all boats, I don’t think many understand what made it, and subsequently “BRAT,” so good, and that it had to do with one man’s funny haircut.
But, first, let’s talk about me. I have always (ok, not always, but for a long time) been into Charli xcx. I know, so unique, wow. Charli xcx? Who’s that, some underground future superstar? Fuck you, dick!
We can like the same things. Anyhoo, I have always been captivated above all else by her unique sound — or nearly unique, I’ll get back to it later.
But broadly, EDM and pop seem to be things I am hardwired to love. There are toddler videos of me dancing to, at the time, my favorite song, the Black Eyed Peas’ “Imma Be.” In the ensuing 15 or so years, not much has changed. Now, I listen to “Meet Me Halfway” more often, but still make time for the freaks of my youth.
My real awakening came later while driving home from chess club in 4th and 5th grade in the backseat of my mom’s hand-me-down Honda. We would jam out hard to mainstream pop radio while I poked the holes in the perforated pleather with the blue pens that were always leaking on her legal pads. These times with my mom, who often left for work before I was up and got home well after dinner, were special for many other reasons. But the soundtrack was certainly a huge factor. Love you, Mom.
“ My mom’s energetic beats carried her from place to place and kept her in fighting form. I was left intoxicated by their secondhand smoke. ”
Being an energetic tween with all kinds of internet access, it was impossible not to be a pop fan in that era, and it was equally hard to miss what was happening in the underworld of EDM. Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way,” Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” and of course, Charli’s feature on “I Love It,” coming through the Honda’s speakers, buoyed me homeward on gentle waves of high spirits. I chased the dragon whenever I could, piping the extremes of Skrillex, TheFatRat and Nightcore through the wires of my Skullcandy earbuds, letting the music wash over me like a tsunami as I lay stunned and prostrate on my twin bed.
But middle school came, and along with it, usual suspects like Drake, Kanye and Juice WRLD. Pop began to dull and leaden, and the spiral didn’t stop. COVID knocked my taste senseless and, for a while, I wandered in the dark. Shadows flicked across the walls of my cavelike bedroom as I listened to (shudder) internet music, from Drain Gang to Food House, late into the night. Was this even real? After my voluntary exile, I had to go back out in search of the Platonic Forms. And as it would turn out, they would find me.
In 2020, just two days after my 16th birthday, Charli and I began a new era. With the release of her album “how i’m feeling now,” like some poor turn-of-the-century schizophrenic, “visions” produced an electroconvulsive shock therapy in me. All of a sudden, pop was cool again.
Alloying songwriting of the established mainstream with the exciting innovation of the online hyperpop scene I was mixed up in (youth!), the album seemed like a crystallization of a pure alchemical pop, transforming genre into gold. With only a single feature, each track seemed to leave us alone to mourn the lives we had left behind as we isolated ourselves at home.
Her piercing solo deliveries cut through the track’s space, but vocals came second. Set in an otherworldly arctic soundscape, instrumentals dripped pink diamond tears that rang metallically as they shattered in the background. This alien, superhuman production had to come from somewhere, so I began to retrace its steps.
It became clear that the mastermind behind the album that changed everything for me was notable for more than his haircut. He produced and collaborated with Lady Gaga, Beyonce and SOPHIE; produced, in part or whole, nearly every Charli xcx project since “Boom Clap;” Founded the London-based PC Music label in 2013, which was named “one of the most influential of the 2010’s,” impacting artists from Skrillex to Madonna. In the past year alone, he remixed BRAT, won a Grammy and DJ’ed Charli’s wedding. Yet you still don’t know who I’m talking about.
A.G. Cook was operating right under my nose too, dear reader. First meeting in 2014, Charli described Cook in a co-interview as “a mysterious and Machiavellian figure,” but the two soon clicked. In 2016, after pushback from the squares at Atlantic over the alternative sound of “Boom Clap,” Cook stepped in. As Charli’s creative director, “It was the beginning of the true Charli,” noted Cook.
Like you invariably will after reading this zinger, I began to listen to Cook through the lens of my love for Charli. 7G, Cook’s first solo album, comprising a stunning 49 tracks across seven themed discs, was my first one-on-one with Cook. It shocked me. For years I idolized Charli as a peerless pop genius, but with just a first listen, it was obvious that so many of the hallmarks of Charli’s “unique” style came from her collaboration with Cook. Yet outside of the overbearing eye of stardom, his work can go boldly farther still.
There are so many artists who live in the backgrounds of their more famous influences, like Lee Krasner for Pollock. If we wish to really understand the work of the latter, we must recognize the former. A.G. Cook is inseparable from the work of Charli xcx, and in a post-BRAT world, inseparable from pop as a whole. His relative, perhaps deliberate, anonymity lets him push boundaries that others can’t, shaping the undercurrents of music. But we need to exhume him to see exactly how, for to not know him is to not know pop.
Cook’s art, by choice or otherwise, represents a vestige of culture I call the mainstream fringe: Culture that most are familiar with, but few are completely aware of. These sub-basements and wells make up the catacombs that feed the visible landscape of our culture. We can imagine Cook’s subterrain as his chosen home partially because of his Friar Tuck haircut and his Moleman spectacles. But taking a geologic survey of his influence is crucial as a fan of Charli’s and of pop.
Without pushing the boundaries of pop for nearly a decade, Cook and Charli would have never been able to achieve such mainstream success with an album as different as BRAT. The duo’s next projects will still sound dissimilar to most pop, BRAT included, but they will likely never be far from the lime-colored limelight it attracted. So if you want to understand Charli, you need to be able to spot the man in the fuck ass bob who’s a little too comfortable in her shadow.
Parker DeVore PZ ’27 is from the mean streets of Seattle and is a staunch supporter of bringing the dab back. However, he remains unsure if he’s the man for the job. Will you do it?