Just when you thought Brat summer was officially over, Charli xcx returns to prove there is so much more where that came from. Brat and it's completely different but also still brat brings the brightness needed just as the leaves begin to lose their hue. Elias Serghi takes a deep dive into this latest offering.
I’d be taking up too much of my word count if I introduced this review with all of the context. How Charli xcx’s sixth studio album Brat solidified her as not only a pop star for the times, but also an art movement and a staple in culture. She has been heavily acclaimed, and celebrated, for defining 2024 with a club album; colliding herself at her most canine and her most vulnerable. Stomping on the necks of today’s racing algorithms, consumption habits and general safety of trends - you’ve likely already heard and experienced the story yourself.
In the last month, Charli and her surrealist marketing team had taken on the transition from “Brat summer” to “Brautumn” with new-world-order dominance. Collaborators involved in the sequel, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, were announced with their names reversed on harsh green billboards in their hometowns. The build-up of each one was observed online like an Easter egg hunt.
With discourse about which artist would accompany each track, the tracklist was announced in a contrasting manner of Charli handing it in a scrunched-up sheet of paper to an attendee of her Sweat Tour in Orlando. The fan was given the duty to take a picture of it and announce it to the world themself.
Now, the remix album is finally here for us to find out how Charli’s trusted collaborators have made Brat “completely different”. It seems like we will be going into autumn experiencing the album all over again.
A second rodeo was already foreseen in March with Von dutch a.g. cook remix featuring addison rae, not even a month after thunderstorming her comeback with the aggressive original track. Here, Addison powerfully outshined her TikTok-influencer persona with a 7-second long scream of rockstar shock value; riding the drop in A.G. Cook’s equally frightening, club-like distortion. Switching up the lyrics to a radical ally-ship with Charli against their haters, Addison asserted herself in the Brat monarchy as a force to be reckoned with when she ends the track in flames.
A trilogy of friendship moments were spread out during the summer, where collaborators hopped onto the original track to say their own pieces. 360 featuring robyn & yung lean is a script of three respective pioneers in their own genres, bouncing off each other’s charisma and successful swagger in powerpuff-girl attitude. Girl, so confusing featuring lorde invited Charli’s own antagonist to put a stop to their mutual insecurity about comparison and unrequited bonds between women in the music industry. This became an emotional movement in womanhood, encouraging complicated relationships to “work it out on the remix”. Guess featuring billie eilish drove Billie’s visual bulldozer into the Brat era with her classic “silent, but deadly” confidence. She reinforces Charli’s seductive message from a tease to a promise.
The new changes in sound returned with Talk talk featuring troye sivan last month. Troye grabbed the hand of the heart throbbing, melancholic mid-2010s dance pop throwback about yearning. This new house-pop version exudes a lot more confidence, only having to ask the other person to “Talk to me in french. Talk to me in spanish.” this time around. Troye affirms his place in his romantic interest’s life with a dancier build-up, a jaunty flow and stapling piano notes.
Anybody who hasn’t heard the remaining 11 tracks yet will be pleased to know they have all been reinvented. However, not in the way we were all likely expecting. What was a 41-minute whiplash of flamboyant hypes and relatable melancholy has been transformed into a watered down 48 minutes; giving Charli the leeway to express more humility - for the most part. A lot of the danceability has been removed to potentially make this her most soulful project to date.
Sympathy is a knife featuring ariana grande was unpredictable. How Ariana’s romantic and melodious tone would reshape what was originally all screams, alarms and brutality in synths and rage. The synths have been simmered down and dragged out for this version, to accompany Charli and Ariana’s protests against their negative experiences in the public eye that could shed a few tears.
Everything is romantic featuring caroline polachek unveils an envious and sorrowful reaction to Charli’s reminiscence of her summer love in Italy. Here, Caroline calls for Charli’s comfort, struggling with her solitude in rainy, autumnal East London. She paints cloudy pessimism with hushed minimalist production and siren-like wailing in Radiohead No Surprises fashion.
You can’t help but sympathise. She tops the pathetic fallacy by tossing out imagery that she is bored of in Charli’s excitable and vogue-like template.
The production on Rewind featuring bladee accompanies its message. They introduce rapping to the track to fit in even more venting about struggles with fame and mental health. Both of their flows glide wonderfully over a slower, glistening synth river that made me nostalgic for a heartstring tug from 2017’s Pop 2.
"A lot of the danceability has been removed to potentially make this her most soulful project to date"
I’d class the previous three tracks, and Mean girls featuring julian casablancas, as a quintet being undressed of their party outfits. This remix doesn’t necessarily ode to The Strokes or The Voidz. It starts on the (very underrated) piano riff from the original, with the pair bouncing on it rebelliously like they are the “mean girls”. This is suddenly slowed down to defeated drums, broken piano keys and the pair harmonising about how Julian resents the “mean girls” he’s experienced.
I might say something stupid featuring the 1975 & jon hopkins hits a milestone in Charli’s discography - giving space for the most quiet and ambient track in all of her lists. Wringing even more low self esteem out of the minute-long interlude soaks misery from Matty Healy’s, well expected, introspective contribution. Clawing out from Jon Hopkins’ ‘unhappy ending’ soundscape towards the end are emo guitars and drums that can’t break out of their shyness, thematically.
To trick the psychology of Brat’s tracklist, So I featuring a.g. cook switches from the saddest track on the original, to one of the more upbeat pick-up points. Written in honour of her partner in crime, SOPHIE; she moves on from dwelling on not being a good friend to starting every happy memory with “Now I wanna think about all the good times”. Rapping her reminiscences of their time together as collaborators and shapeshifters, A.G. Cook does her signature production justice. Cartoonish head bops over an ethereal take on nightlife, just like how SOPHIE would at her most sentimental. The remix noted her referenced advice of “Make it faster”, catching up with the sampling of her 2017 single It’s Okay To Cry until it almost sounds like a sequel.
A handful of these collaborators bring their musical hands on deck, to interpret their most recognisable criterion. Apple featuring the japanese house cradles the bouncing ball of 80s thuds, delivering the next heartbreak manifesto to those who swear to indie pop. A slow hopscotch of pretty sounds with a mournful undertone. B2b featuring tinashe diminishes the looping knife trick of sharp hypnotics, bringing in Tinashe’s classic narrative candy-pink alternative R&B and twirling pop. Reuniting after their ancient collaboration, Drop That Kitty with Ty Dolla $ign in 2015, the production enhances their mutual applause for each other from that era: “We made ‘em Boom Clap, made ‘em get 2 On.” I think about it all the time featuring bon iver brings their echoed landscape of 2019’s i,i to make the song now also sonically reflective, as well as lyrically - really stating their shared question of clashing fame and time against starting a family.
Now that I’ve covered the softening of this remix album, listeners still get slapped in the face by a hardcore Charli for the two obvious tracks. Club classics featuring bb trickz takes a chaotic turn from 365’s initial concept of hearing the song in different rooms of a superclub. Bb trickz speeds up the perspective with acidic, dramatic blows and tightened bassline wonks. 365 featuring shygirl had very big rave boots to fill as the beloved closing track on this album, but trust Shygirl and longtime producer Easyfun to bring her authoritative horror movie scores of deconstructed club and eardrum shredding bass.
We all knew this year that Charli XCX is full of surprises, and Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat tops her reputation on the opposite side of the spectrum. This remix album is only big, mighty and to be feared in its own impact. Sonically, this album is an emotional draught of delicacy and woe after it originally asserted Charli’s volcanic dominance. Her curated circle of 18 diverse artists also pull her arms through different doors out of the dance pop club room. I think she should have given Hello Goodbye (my favourite) its moment alongside Tove Lo, and staticized Spring Breakers with Death Grips or Slayyyter. Overall, the relationship we have all built with Brat this summer steps down for autumn with a brand new therapeutic aura. All for the sake of Charli xcx weaving culture in the cotton of her strappy white top.
Elias Serghi
Edited by Alice Beard
Official Brat and it's completely different but also still brat LP cover courtesy of Charli xcx, in- artcile image courtesy of Genius on twitter, videos courtesy of Charli xcx on Youtube
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