Charli xcx Deserves Our Attention

A review of brat but it's completely different but it's still brat

Me Yapping Feel Free to Scroll to the Review

The 2020s are the era of the short attention span. We gas up quick, trendy TikTok friendly acts like 4batz and Ice Spice and within a year, no one is talking about them. People are going to watch Dune 2 on their TV, getting bored 20 minutes in and switching to Family Guy highlights. Instant gratification of all base level needs becomes the top priority, it’s all good feelings with no impact. That’s why this Charli record is one of the top five records of this decade thus far, it is both the poison we are being fed and the antidote all in one. That’s a wholehearted and unironic compliment, let me explain.

Charli xcx’s entire career up until this point has been this balancing act between fan service for the diehards and appealing to Grammy standards. Sometimes she leaned too hard into what the fans wanted, like on “Track 10” and her album how i’m feeling now. As a long running fan of her music, this was my favorite material from her, before brat. “Track 10” especially is uncompromising and experimental, not quite catchy but to me is a benchmark of artistic achievement in the way her late friend Sophie’s debut was. Other times, she was too willing to bend to commercial appeal as on her early work or especially Crash. This resulted in her being a middle child between the club kids and the Duas and Taylors of the world. brat and its newly released remix companion album changed that, and thank God they did. As a pair, these two records get to be everything for everyone, without compromising a single bit. 42 tracks, back to back to back, and I love nearly every moment of it.

Going back to my poison and cure metaphor, what is poisonous in modern music? There are a few aspects. One is legacy stars taking up every festival headlining spot and Billboard Top 10 placement. Another is TikTok making people need oversimple song structures. And yet another is generic lyricism, or bad attempts at being deep. Charli has been around since the early aughts, is getting top Billboard spots and a lot these cuts are ADD as fuck. She fits the bill if you want to be someone more cynical than myself. She’s everywhere, the tour footage is nonstop. We’re in brat autumn about buckle down for brat winter and brat spring and go to our 12th brat night at Rash or Market Hotel but before that, taking the brat bus up to Upstate New York to look at the brat but it’s completely different but it’s still brat giant vinyl stage at the brat but it’s completely different but it’s still brat release party and then going to the brat but it’s completely different but it’s still brat afters at the Bowery. She is taking up so much of our attention, but she deserves it.

She deserves it because she has been holding shit down and innovating for 10+ motherfucking years. Whether it was her work with PC Music, or literally any song off brat now, she has never let her foot off the gas since Vroom Vroom. Once in a while she Crashed (lol) but for the most part she was weaving in and out of everyone’s lanes for the longest time. She’s got songs with the drainers, the hyperpop set, the top pop girlies, and has outlasted a million trends. While I am probably too much of a grown ass man to run around to all these promo events, at least they're promoting something that doesn’t suck. That’s not promised in the 2020s. Most things suck. But whatever Charli is making just doesn’t suck, plain and simple.

Brat Remix Record Review

Grade (By Itself): B

Grade (Paired with brat): A

Repeat after me: exceptional art will make you make exceptions.

Maybe the Ying solo record was near perfect and the experimental Yang flute album was a little less enjoyable, but when you put them together, it’s magical. The genius thing about putting these albums as a two-disc set on Spotify is that we already know this original by heart at this point. You get all the streams and success attached to brat but then you get to tinker with the structure, almost like a live SWEAT tour performance. Addison Rae, Lorde, Troye and Shygirl have all done these cuts with her on the tour as well, and all standout as major highlights. They all make varying levels of changes that kind of set the tone for the overall record, and all of them are perfect in their own way. Maybe on the tour or as lose TikToks or singles many of these songs sounded either too experimental or too unchanged. In the context of the album, they all fit together like puzzle pieces.

“Girl so confusing” with Lorde first read to me as a lazy punch-in verse. Lorde’s flow is a little awkward but seemed heartfelt. I could not have been more backwards on this one. Charli assumed that Lorde has beef with her, and put out that song on the original brat. Soon after Lorde responded by saying she felt the exact same way, and a bridge was rebuilt. The line “I think I know how you feel” from the OG song now takes on a new meaning, it’s an admission that assumption is the problem. It’s a level of self-awareness and transparency that modern music is lacking, and it’s catchy as hell! “365” with Shygirl on the other hand is insane and primed for TikTok clips, but it’s perfect. Each remix tracks adds and once in a while outshines its original, which is a rare feat for these type of records.

This record uses massive but more traditional features from Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande to Trojan horse this record into every house in America. Billie is OK on “Guess”, she honestly makes it worse, but she elevates this album to the stadiums. Ariana on the other hand really matches the vibe on the “Sympathy is a knife”. It’s so infinitely listenable, and it’ll make people go check out the original. It’s good marketing but the song rivals its predecessor in terms of lyrics and production.

When it gets really deep and not for radio is where it gets like, transcendent. I mean, Caroline Polachek? The lyric “Free bleeding in the August rain”? Her describing Charli calling her on a hotel phone and then Charli pops into the song to recreate that convo? So fucking innovative. This song and others corrects for the lack of melodies on brat, but that wasn’t even an issue for me, I still gave that record an A. I already gave “Club classics” a 10/10, but the version with bb trickz that interpolates the new “club classic” song she created, “365”. Like this particular remix would work better in a DJ set, where the other one is better for headphones. Everything for everyone. We get features from Bladee and Yung Lean that are fine but why not? It’s just like Pop 2, I didn't love Pablo Vittar but why not? brat was minimalist, brat but it’s completely different but it’s still brat is maximalist. This is a victory lap. Between conciseness and excess is balance. These records complete each other and answer each other’s questions. If brat was a label artist at her wits end going to balls to the wall, then the remix record is a sort of epilogue to that journey where everything worked out and she lived to tell the tale.

I could go on and on about what I love but I’ll wrap with saying loved all the ones I mentioned plus Julian, Bon Iver, The 1975, not so much The Japanese House and Tinashe. But if I don’t like something I’ll just mute it on Spotify, fuck it. This is the world we live in now, and Charli understands how to make it cool more than 99.9% of mainstream working artists.

K bye!