Hello and welcome to Working It.
I’m Bethan Staton, Deputy Editor for Work and Careers, replacing Isabel.
This week, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris dyed her X account chartreuse green, in reference to the Charli XCX album Golf clubThe move represented a new level of influence for the pop star, who appeared to back Harris’ message: “Kamala IS a brat,” she posted on her own account.
And it wasn’t just Golf clubThe Harris campaign also posted a TikTok declaring that her campaign is a “femininomenón”, a reference to the opening song of Chappell Roan Album Rise and fall of a Midwestern princessCould this be the highlight of Pop Girl Summer, offering a moment of fun, girly music amidst the messy, chaotic energy of this summer’s news cycle?
The FT’s Life & Art podcast delves into feminism (sorry) and the Chappell and Charli tradition. hereBut since this is a newsletter about work, 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 to find out more…
Good luck babe!
If you need a pick-me-up for Wednesday, there’s nothing better than searching for “Before and after Chappell Roan”.
The 26-year-old’s recent rise to fame has been extraordinary. In just a few months, she has gone from having less than 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify, according to Chartmetric, to… more than 34 minutes According to Spotify today, videos of her playing small venues last year and then performing the same songs while tens of thousands of people sang along at US festivals this summer make her look like an overnight success.
It’s not. Roan (real name Kayleigh Rose Amstutz) first signed to a label when she was 17, thanks to some songs she posted on YouTube. But it didn’t work out: In 2020, her label dropped her and she moved from Los Angeles to her parents’ home in Missouri to work at a doughnut shop.
Since then, she’s spent the years quietly working to create music that’s more fun, original and more her own, attracting a loyal fan base and becoming a slow-burning success. She signed with a new record label from longtime collaborator Dan Nigro and toured with Olivia Rodrigo, the first of many high-profile, viral concerts that have snowballed her career.
Glory is most familiar to Charli XCX (aka Charlotte Emma Aitchison), who began playing East London raves as a teenager: her latest album, Crashwas the number one album in the UK in 2022. But she has always been a bit of an outlier, making experimental, glitchy pop that hasn’t always sold massively. Her insecurity about that comes out in Golf clubwhere she compares herself to megastars, questions whether 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 rollicking hit inspired by a night at a gay club in Los Angeles. It wasn’t as successful upon release as expected, but it marked a turning point in the musical style that made her famous: quirky, witty, and very gay. “I feel like I was right all along,” she told Tonight’s program.
Charli XCX has expressed similar sentiments. She made Golf club No “sacrifices”, with frenetic melodies and revealing lyrics. The FT review described it as a “Hotbed of pop conceptualism”; the 31-year-old told Billboard the lime green aesthetic It was designed to be “disgusting.” “There’s always fear when it comes to taking a risk or doing something unconventional,” he said. “My suspicions about what might work were correct.”
Of course, both artists have worked very hard, especially on smart promotion. Golf club The campaign worked so well because the team was “so optimistic and focused on every single thing,” Charli XCX told GQ.
They don’t work alone, either. Roan credits her success to the support of her queer community and has sought to give back to others by hiring drag queens as opening acts and speaking out on LGBT+ issues. Charli XCX’s best work (in my opinion) is in collaboration with artists associated with the hyperpop collective PC Music, and in Golf club She pays tribute to Sophie, the influential producer who passed away in 2021Her shows revolve around her, but pay attention and you might notice that her famous friends do a lot of mixing and acting, too: a lesson in delegation.
So, two pop stars have had up-and-down careers, eventually achieving massive fame by backing their own boundary-pushing creative ideas and sticking with collaborators they really connect with. It may not seem like super It’s relevant if you’re an accountant or stack shelves.
But I think these women’s ambivalent relationships with success and recognition have lessons for everyday careers. They’re a reminder that it’s all too common to not receive full recognition or validation at work. That it can pay to set aside some goals to pursue creative projects; and that ideas of “achieving success” are often relative. We can find satisfaction and solidarity in our work, even if the end product looks different than we originally expected.
Or you could just consider adopting the spirit of Charli XCX’s approach and being a little “messy” at work. as she says on TikToksomeone “who feels like herself but maybe also has a crisis, but somehow has fun with it.” [who] He is honest, very frank, a little volatile, he does stupid things. But he is a spoiled brat.
Do you have any pop girl recommendations or work lessons we can learn from Brat Summer? Email me at bethan.staton@ft.com
This week on the Working It podcast
We all experience ups and downs in our energy levels throughout a workday. How can we make sure those natural rhythms don’t interfere with our work? This week’s episode of the podcastIsabel spoke with Daniel Pink, author of When: The scientific secrets of perfect timingto find out why some of us work better at different times of the day. Plus, producer Mischa Frankl-Duval talks to Box CEO Aaron Levie, who has learned to make the most of his night owl tendencies.
Five standout stories from the world of work
-
Veuve Clicquot CEO: “Let’s break the chains of champagne consumption”Is this true Champagne socialism? Probably not, but I really enjoyed this interview with Jean-Marc Gallot about the democratization of this fine drink and the opposition he has faced from his industry in the process.
-
Crisis simulations force executives to make better decisions under stress: With the latest virtual reality training technology, workers can practice new skills or responsibilities in a risk-free environment. This article also looks at whether leadership is now more about crisis management than anything else.
-
Nick Pickles’ quiet rise at Elon Musk’s X: A Yorkshire man is among the most influential people at the company formerly known as Twitter. Some speculate that he could even be the company’s next CEO. This profile gives a few more details about the man, such as the fact that he stood as a Conservative MP candidate in 2010.
-
Kamala Harris, a Gen X woman with Gen Z appealThis article begins to explain why the likely Democratic nominee is in the ascendancy, and there is much more on the nitty-gritty of her politics on FT.com too.
-
Italy finds itself in a bind over gender quotas in the business sector:A list of all-male candidates for the board of Italian state-owned investment company Cassa Depositi e Prestiti has highlighted how “casual and thoughtless patriarchy” continues to divide 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 this week’s newsletter has left you wanting more, I made a playlist of my favorite female pop songs. from the past few years. These women are now at the top of their game, but their careers are pretty interesting – dig a little deeper here and in their back catalogues and you’ll find stories about agonising over status, balancing success and artistic freedom or struggling with the pressures of work. And some are just plain funny! Send any you think should be added to the list to bethan.staton@ft.com