Brat

Brat is a paean to dance culture and Charli’s own history and influences. But most importantly, it’s probably this complex artist’s most honest and direct work to date.

brat feels like the culmination of a hard-fought career; a substantial moment in the greater canon of pop. It makes me want to dance. It makes me want to cry. .... Charli has somehow squared circle of reconciling universal accessibility with once again upping the ante on her vision of pop’s future.

BRAT comes together in a genius way; it's literary, musically complex and somehow effortless. Not to mention, perfectly suited for when you need to cry at the club.

Charli has crafted a perfect pop album (with the help of the most in-demand producer in the business, AG Cook). Brat is authentic, sensitive, and you’ll be raring to go out once you’ve finished listening.

Whatever the stats and her self-esteem might say, it’s hard to think of another pop star whose vision is so expansive and generous, not least in her willingness to risk being seen as mean in order to say something true. Most of her superstar peers are busy making unrelatable music about how hard it is to be famous. Yet Charli has never lost sight of how hard it is to be human.

If ‘BRAT’ will ultimately push Charli XCX into mainstream pop’s top tier still remains to be seen, but it absolutely guarantees the best night out of your life.

Innovation and self-examination aren’t supposed to be easy so it shouldn’t be surprising if the results are a little messy emotionally — but it’s rare for them to be this fully realized in every other way. ��Brat” vaults Charli back to the front of the line as a pop innovator, not that she’d ever slipped.

On Brat, Charli XCX gets her hands dirty. It hearkens back to both the Vroom Vroom, Number 1 Angel, and Pop 2 eras of Charli while also leaning into the neon-soaked hedonism of late aughts turbo pop.

BRAT showcases every facet of Charli XCX. She’s a club diva, she’s a pop girlie, she’s a partner, she’s a friend, she’s a daughter, she’s a woman trying to navigate her 30s and she’s a person who’s still mourning the death of someone very close to her. On the evidence of BRAT, it’s also justified to say that, right now, she’s the greatest pop star in the world.

Brat is a great, great record. There isn’t a duff jam on here. In the end, what you get at this all-nighter is the glorious, swaggering gonzo nihilism of Charli XCX, versus the lovelorn, self-examining humanity of Charlotte Aitchison, and the winner is us. I hope the cost isn’t too high.

A rare and energetic vision of unfiltered creative impulse from a brilliant prophet of pop.

"I think about it all the time" is among the most surprising moments on the record, as Aitchison sings about the possibilities and paranoias of motherhood so openly and casually like she quickly scribbled on the back of a napkin—that it comes between heaving dance floor tracks only underlines how Aitchison is harnessing her chaotic energy to the fullest, but also how real it is. .... BRAT finds the sweet spot most leftfield pop stars only dream of: keep it experimental and referential, but enjoy the party while it lasts.

Brat's supersaturated sound amplifies her music's swaggering highs and vulnerable depths. .... She delivers some of her most engaging and mature music.

On her sixth studio album, Charli XCX comfortably reaches into the extremes of her catalogue thus far, presenting one of her most subversive and conceptual bodies of work to date.

BRAT is one of her least immediately accessible records yet. Instead, it plays up the aspects of her campy, fascinating sound that longtime fans love. In that sense, she’s following the lead of the artists at her level. Luckily for Charli, none of her peers are making anything as singular as she is.

At fifteen tracks, the album’s club-friendly repetitiveness can make it a bit of a stretch to get through, especially because a few tracks feel less essential than the rest. But overall, it’s still surprisingly exceptional as a front-to-back listen.

The best-sounding version of the Charli XCX promise to make the Apollonian pop landscape Dionysian again. .... BRAT’s most intriguing moments regard her relationships with women, which she unpacks with striking candor.

It is an exciting and emotional listening experience that feels both carefully masterful and sincerely unfiltered.

BRAT is a hedonistic, ultraviolet collection of songs whose thumping – slightly disorienting – club beats more than succeed in their aim of “capturing a feeling of chaos”.

On the self-described “club record”, XCX offers pure party girl hedonism. .... Yet these heady songs also see XCX at her most raw, smuggling the reflections that spill out in the early hours of the morning through the guise of club bangers.

[“Sympathy Is a Knife” is] the first of several tracks that see her baring some of her most conflicted emotions over beats that never lose their energy.

While Brat is undeniably bratty and brash, it’s also frequently vulnerable. .... Charli’s exploration of her priorities isn’t merely slapped atop catchy club beats though. Her ambivalence is in direct conversation with the music itself.