Charli XCX swept the BRIT Awards 2025 last night, taking home five awards and thanking dance artists who inspired her vision for ‘Brat‘, among them her late collaborator SOPHIE.
The ‘360’ singer went into last night’s (March 1) ceremony as this year’s most nominated artist, which followed a culture-defining ‘Brat’ summer that saw her round off a banner year by being named as the Album of the Year by NME.
“‘Brat’ as cultural sensation was a sight to behold, to be sure,” NME wrote. “But ‘Brat’ as an album – the record at the core of the rollout, the music beneath the marketing – is quite simply exceptional.”
As well as beating the likes of The Last Dinner Party and The Cure for the prestigious Album Of The Year, she won Artist Of The Year and Best Dance Act. Having already been named as recipient of the Songwriter Of The Year award, her winning Song Of The Year for ‘Guess‘, her collaboration with Billie Eilish, brought her total to five awards.
When accepting the first prize of the night for Best Song, she told the crowd at London’s O2 arena: “I’m really happy that a song about underwear now has a BRIT award, very important stuff and I’m sure that that proves something about songwriting but I’m not quite sure what.”
While accepting the award for Best Dance Act, she nodded to those who inspired her, saying: “Shout out to Justice, Daft Punk, SebastiAn, Honey Dijon, Robyn, Arca, M.I.A, Autechre, Aphex Twin & of course, someone who none of us would be here without, SOPHIE.”
She also touched on what the dance genre meant to her personally, saying: “I feel like dance music, electronic music, it gets a really bad rep because I feel like everybody’s like ‘Oh, well, it’s not really that deep is it?’ and I kind of feel like it is.
“I feel like this genre of music, for me, it’s euphoric. It allows me to escape. It allows me to feel on such a deep level. Maybe that’s not the way for everyone, but for me, it is.”
In 2021, the DJ and producer was confirmed to have died during a “sudden accident” in Athens, with XCX saying at the time: “I will honour Sophie in my own time personally, in my grief, through my memories, through my work, through writing things only I will read.”
‘Brat’ featured ‘So I’, a song written in memory of SOPHIE. Prior to its release, Charli told NME: “It’s probably not as simply put as [a tribute] but there is a song on the record which talks about my relationship with SOPHIE.
“Essentially, dealing with grief is what the song is about. It’s very real. All the lyrics are things that I would text my friends – the kind of dialogue and the voice of this record is very conversational and very diar-etic for sure.”
Charli and SOPHIE worked together on many projects, beginning in 2015 with the former’s ‘Vroom Vroom’ EP. They went on to collaborate on the singles ‘After the Afterparty’, ‘No Angel’, and ‘Girls Night Out’, as well as the ‘Number 1 Angel’ tracks ‘Roll With Me’ and ‘Lipgloss’, and ‘Pop 2’ track ‘Out of My Head’.
Elsewhere in the night, she spoke of her uncompromising vision for ‘Brat’ as well as how it felt to get recognition for it. Upon winning Best Album, she said she used to tell herself awards “weren’t important”, adding that was “easy to do as until last year I wasn’t nominated for anything.”
“I’ve always felt like an outsider, particularly in the British music industry,” she said. “So it feels really nice to be recognised on this album, when I haven’t made any sacrifices.”
While saying that it felt that “culture caught up with us”, she advised her peers: “You don’t need to compromise your vision.”
‘Brat’ summer looks set for round two in 2025. As well as Primavera, Charli has been confirmed as the first headliner for next year’s Parklife and the ‘360’ artist has also curated a day at London’s LIDO Festival, where she’ll deliver a bill-topping performance.