- Brash, confident and proudly messy, Charli XCX's clubbiest album is also her most vulnerable—and best.
- Every new Charlotte Aitchison album means a new Charli XCX era. For Pop 2, it was all about becoming a futuristic popstar. Charli was a reintroduction. How I'm Feeling Now ushered in pandemic domesticity with intimate and unhinged bedroom pop, and CRASH, her most commercially successful album to date, was all about selling out for stardom. On BRAT, she finds her voice, embracing her party girl antics like never before. It's raw and hedonistic, yet vulnerable—the first record that matches her chaotic soul. She's never sounded better or more commanding.
BRAT is a dispatch straight from the club. The production—from a crack team that includes A. G. Cook, Hudson Mohawke, Gessafelstein and more—is tight, provocative and explosive, without losing its core danceability. Even at its most art pop, tracks like the Eurodance-leaning "Talk Talk," the bubblegum bass of "Club Classics" or the chart-pop "Apple" would have no issues turning an empty dance floor into a sweaty sauna. BRAT has the kind of revved-up approach that should appease even the most left-field experimental pop aficionados. Maybe it's a matter of timing: the general public's obsession with dance music is largely influenced by escapism. We are facing arguably the most difficult decade of the new millennium between genocide, a pandemic, inflation, fascism. And everyone's tapping into the dance genres that fueled the crises of the '00s: electroclash, bloghouse and electropop. Aitchison is channeling that energy into some of the most carefree moments of her musical career so far. "3-6-5 party girl / Shall we do a little key? Shall we do a little line?" she cheekily sings on "365." She's not here to be a voice of reason—she wants to soundtrack your problems.
Aitchison embodies the role of a brat with precision. A brat knows how to self mythologise and not care one bit about the optics. "I'm your favorite reference, baby" she proudly gloats over a sugary bassline on "360," in between calling out her internet famous friends Gabriette Bechtel and Julia Fox as backup. Perfect lead single "Von dutch" is impossible to divorce from this concept: "It's okay to just admit that I’m the fantasy," she brags, strutting all over Charles De Gaulle airport like she's the only person to ever do it.
The thing is, even at its most grandiose and self-inflated, BRAT never feels overdone. The music is expertly dance-pilled, the melodies are earwormy and sleek. She knows indie sleaze is back, and all the downtown NYC boys are doing it, so why not throw in a dash of hyper pop, jump on cars in Brooklyn, play record-breaking Boiler Room sets and blow it all up? That's what a real brat would do anyway.
While she's more confident and carefree than ever, BRAT is bold enough to spill secrets and insecurities with as much hustle as its flashier subject matter. "Sympathy is a knife" is an icey jealousy spiral ("I couldn't even be her if I tried") with a paranoid synth pop melody to drive the point home. Hyperpop ballad "So I" laments over Charli's relationship with SOPHIE: "Your star burns so bright / Why did I push you away," easily one of the most emotional tracks for any fan of leftfield pop fundamentalist of the last decade. "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.
For the first time, Aitchison explicitly mulls over not being more famous, more recognizable and more lauded for her contributions to pop music (she has, after all, penned megahits for the kind of stars she ironically channeled on CRASH) on BRAT in a way that reads unfiltered and sounds frenetic. Short and to the point, the depressing and robotic "i might say something stupid" makes this loud and clear: "I'm famous but not quite/I'm perfect for the background, one foot in a normal life." On the zippy "Rewind," Aitchison sings lightheartedly about deserving billboard success. In the context of the larger record, though, Aitchison doesn't really care what people think about this or any of her other insecurities. It speaks directly to misogyny in the industry and beyond in a way that quite candidly reads like a huge "fuck you, I'm stronger than you," and carries on without a single hitch. Aitchison refuses to satiate audiences with a perfectly crafted pop image: everything here is warped for her own self gratification. If you enjoy it, then she's accomplished her goals: let her take from you the same way American culture preys on women for a good time.
Instead of obsessing solely on the album's image and sellability, with BRAT, Aitchison has room to run wild and free in both concept and output—so long as it promises to deliver a good time. This the loosest she's been in a long time, even in its grittier moments. BRAT finds the sweet spot most leftfield pop stars only dream of: keep it experimental and referential, but enjoy the party while it lasts. Almost everything here works because it's sardonic in spite of its firecracker delivery. "Took a long time / Breaking myself down, building myself up / Repeating it," she sings decisively on "B2B," only to immediately neutralize her strength: "I don't want to feel fearless." Screw CRASH—BRAT is her real villain origin story, and I hope she's only just getting started.
Tracklist01 360
02 Club Classics
03 Sympathy Is a Knife
04 I Might Say Something Stupid
05 Talk Talk
06 Von dutch
07 Everything Is Romantic
08 Rewind
09 So I
10 Girl, So Confusing
11 Apple
12 B2B
13 Mean Girls
14 I Think About It All the Time
15 365