Charli xcx – ‘Brat’
For those of us who already got “it” when it came to Charli xcx, we would never have anticipated the impact this album would have on the world. Going a little more mainstream for her last album ‘CRASH’ might have worked well as it charted in the top ten in a handful of countries but Charli herself claimed that it contained songs that even she wouldn’t listen to. She set out to make her next record the antithesis of the one prior… and she succeeded. While she said she wasn’t made to create songs for radio, she’s actually done just that. The intent of going against the mainstream has in fact made Charli the mainstream.
Before she announced the title of the album, she described it as aggressive and confrontational. Aggressiveness evident in the production: it’s loud, brash and like its namesake, bratty. ‘360’ opens the album with some classic sounding Charli, it’s bouncy and poppy. ‘Club classics’ throws you straight into a strobe laden dance floor, reminiscent of the scene where she started it all, performing as a teenager at raves.
‘Brat’ is the definition of club-pop but that doesn’t mean she can’t get serious on a number of the album tracks. A bit like the random girl you might encounter in the smoking area of the club. She tackles the subject of family, using the metaphor of an apple to traverse her relationship with her parents, weary of inheriting unfavourable traits from them. She pays tribute to frequent collaborator and trail blazer, SOPHIE who passed away in 2021 (‘So I’). SOPHIE has been credited with helping Charli curate a sound that built her such a cult following and it’s this influence that made her feel intimidated by her. She also ponders her own success in ‘Rewind’ by saying she wants to go back to a simpler time and maybe she doesn’t deserve to have any commercial success.
Charli intertwines the uppers with the downers very well with ‘brat’ which makes it such an infectious ride. Ending the standard edition of the album with ‘365’ it feels like you’ve dropped a pill and you’ve started to come up even though we’ve come to the end of the rave. Enter the deluxe tracks for the chaotic ride to the afters where the remix album ‘Brat and it’s completely different but still brat’ provides the perfect after party soundtrack until you get the fear from the 7AM sunlight and the birds chirping.
Summer 2024 belonged to ‘Brat’ but if one thing is for sure, it’s that ‘Brat’ transcends seasons and isn’t going away by the time 2025 rolls around.