Charli XCX has hit back at the “boomer vibe” criticism of her Glastonbury performance – scoffing at suggestions her use of autotune makes her a “fraud”.
The 32-year-old pop star topped the bill on The Other Stage on Saturday night (28.06.25) and drew an enormous crowd compared to the Pyramid Stage headliner Neil Young.
Charli’s performance was available to watch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer and many watching from home took to social media to lambast her for using autotune on her vocals ands and for favouring a backing track over real musicians.
But Charli has defended her set – which was predominantly made up of tracks from her hit album Brat – and her singing, insisting she is as much a “real artist” as someone in a band.
Posting on X, she wrote: “Really enjoying these boomer vibe comments on Glastonbury performance. It’s super fascinating to me.
“Like the idea that singing with deliberate autotune makes you a fraud or that not having a traditional band suddenly means you must not be a “real artist” is like, the most boring take ever. yawn sorry just fell asleep xx
“But to be honest… i enjoy the discourse. imo the best art is divisive and confrontational and often evolves into truly interesting culture rather than being like kind of ok, easily understood and sort of forgettable.”
As well as tracks from Brat, such as Apple, Von Dutch, I Might Say Something Stupid and 360, Charli also performed older hits Party 4 U and I Love It as well as Brat bonus song Guess.
At one point, singer/songwriter Gracie Abrams appeared on the big screens to perform the “Apple dance” that went viral on TikTok in 2024.
To close her show, Charli sipped wine and then splashed and writhed around as on-stage rain cascaded down on her.
At the end of her performance, messages flashed up on screens that read: “Thank you so much Glastonbury. So we burnt it down, does that mean Brat is finally over? Maybe it is. But probably not.
“But we had to do it and it looked cool. I think you have all proven that Brat is forever. And honestly, I don’t know who I am if it’s over.”