Album Review: “Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat” by Charli XCX

Charli XCX’s Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat isn’t just a remix album, it’s an extension album. On songs like Rewind featuring Bladee and Everything is Romantic featuring Caroline Polachek, melodies from the original trailblazing album linger, transformed into relatively relaxed versions of the ‘Brat summer’ soundtrack.

For long time Charli fans, it’s hard not to feel cathartic listening to the Brat remix album. If Brat was the album to propel Charli into the chaos of the mainstream, Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat is the comedown – the ‘After the Afterparty’, if you will. The album is bookended by club bangers and (deservedly) self-congratulatory anthems like 360 featuring Robyn and Yung Lean, 365 featuring Shygirl, and Guess featuring Billie Eilish. Yet, embedded within these stories of coke-fuelled hedonism, Charli’s lyricism on Sympathy is a Knife featuring Ariana Grande and Everything is Romantic featuring Caroline Polachek is markedly self-referential and self-reflective: “Have I lost my perspective? Is everything still romantic?” Contrast this to the original version of Rewind, where Charli questions how much commercial success she really deserves. Being a critical darling is nothing new for Charli, but she can finally say with confidence that her songs really are big in Germany.

Lyricism aside, Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat also encapsulates Charli XCX’s career sonically. Brat in many ways was a departure from Charli’s usual style – no features and an unwavering commitment to her late-2000s dance-pop influences. On the remix album, she returns to a dichotomy that has attracted criticism from the likes of Anthony Fantano and other self-professed music nerds, that her music uncomfortably toes the line between the mainstream and the experimental. Take Number 1 Angel, an extremely underrated Charli mixtape that offers no-frills pop tracks like Emotional alongside ecstasy-fuelled PC Music bangers like Roll With Me. Given the context of Charli’s career, maybe it was always that her sound was shaped by an underlying desire to achieve mainstream success, which she had a taste of with Boom Clap in 2014. It’s poetic that the Brat remix album seems to strike this balance once again, but with a confidence and tastefulness that reflects her upward trajectory. While expanding on the poptimism of Apple with the Japanese House remix, she also taps into her underground influences, including Drainers Bladee and Yung Lean as well as the London rave scene. The ensemble of features includes longtime collaborators like Caroline Polachek, A.G. Cook, and Troye Sivan, but titans of pop like Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish in many ways epitomise the Brat zeitgeist – it’s unlikely that these collaborations would have been possible without Bratmania.

So I featuring A.G. Cook particularly stands out for its experimentation, sampling beats produced by the late SOPHIE and posing a contrast to the ambient I Might Say Something Stupid featuring The 1975 and John Hopkins. The death of hyperpop seems to be a prominent theme of the album, sonically but not at all lyrically. On Girl, So Confusing, Charli’s unrhymed speak-singing brings to mind the early days of hyperpop, recorded on laptops in bedrooms and placed over sharp, punchy synths. On Sympathy is a Knife featuring Ariana Grande, Charli’s production once again evokes a certain nostalgia, using a sound that blends so well with Grande’s voice that it is hard to see why she has never forayed into this space before. Brat certainly marks a new era for Charli’s career, image, and sound, but also for the musical landscape she has cemented her place in over the last decade, with the PC Music label shutting down just a year ago.

Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat is an experience in every sense of the term. Context-laden, trance-like, and existential all at once, Charli XCX’s first remix album is the artist at her best, with her creative vision and commitment to producing an actual remix album so strong that overly meta discussions of her post-Brat songwriting perspective are made futile. What is a Brat if not irreverent? Through the music alone, we are reminded that Charli is just a young girl from Essex, and an extremely talented one at that.