WIXQ DJ's Recommended Music

Charli xcx - BRAT

Posted: 6/26/2024 by Leilani Krady ( See All) Show: Tuesday from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM

(2024) BRAT - Charli xcx

In case you have been living under a rock, it's officially BRAT summer. On June 7th Charli xcx returned from the world of CRASH (2022) to swoop in and save pop music with her already highly acclaimed 8th studio album, BRAT. The album artwork, which is simply the word ‘brat’ in blurry arial font on a vivid lime green background, immediately reached legendary icon status, prompting an internet trend where people take pictures or videos of any lime-green object they see out in the world and interpret it as intentional marketing for the album. There is even a brat generator website where users can type whatever they want in arial font on the now-famous shade of green. So what does BRAT summer entail? What does it mean to be a BRAT? What's this album all about?

BRAT summer is passing around a bottle of wine in the river with your friends. It’s unironically wearing Crocs. It’s sleeping naked. It’s finding beauty in and embracing the innate paradoxes of life. It’s getting a little too tipsy at the family function. It’s your favorite shoes giving you blisters. It’s ditching your man to go out with the girls. It’s going thrifting with a cold brew full of melted ice. It is embracing contradiction. It is simultaneously having a god complex while being debilitatingly insecure. BRAT is messy, it is unquestionably real, and it's not only already one of the most important albums of the summer, but I’ll bet that it’s going to be fighting for album of the year.

“360” was the last single and the opening track off of BRAT, and it sets the lyrical and sonic tone of the album. Sonically, it immediately tells us that we’re in for a hyperpop-infused treat. Lyrically, it’s a god complex club banger. Famous lines from “360” include “I’m everywhere, I’m so Julia” (a reference to Julia Fox, pop culture icon) and “when you're in the mirror, do you like what you see? / when you're in the mirror, you're just looking at me.” The track features a video-game-esque electronic melody and, of course, confident/bratty lyrics. This is where BRAT shines--walking the line between pure self confidence and brattiness… and it doesn’t feel the need to pick one or the other.

“Club classics” is driven by looping vocal clips, half-spoken lyrics, and thumping electronic synths. Hyperpop influence is massively apparent on this track as well as the rest of the album. “Club classics” is, of course, very SOPHIE-esque (more on that later). This track is another club banger about Charli’s favorite club bangers. Very meta. She wants to dance to A. G., to SOPHIE, with George, and, in BRAT fashion, to her own music.

The only way I can describe the masterpiece that is “Sympathy is a knife” is as a hyperpop lamentation about insecurity and the pain/embarrassment that can accompany sympathy. The verses are sparse musically, with a rapid repetition of motifs that drives us into a chorus expertly punctuated by what sounds like a staccato of violin notes. This one high-pitched detail gives this song a mournful and tense atmosphere. Charli’s vocals are also perfectly painful. She has a knack for encapsulating huge and overwhelming complex emotions in simplistic lyrics--such as the very specific feeling generated by lines like “I feel all these feelings I can't control.”

“I might say something stupid” is a musical vibe shift into a sad, slow, and autotuned world. Again Charli’s ability to convey such specific feelings associated with certain scenarios is highly commendable. Painfully relatable lyrics include “I look perfect for the background / I get nervous, sip the wine” and “I snag my tights out on the lawn chair / guess I'm a mess and play the role.” On this note, BRAT summer is also all about the duality of being able to switch up between dancing to hyperpop and crying to mellow electronic music. Which brings us back to…

With “Talk talk” we’re back to the bangers. Enough moping! This song is a wonderful, straight up pop joyride, featuring more 10/10 lines like “I followed you to the bathroom / but then I felt crazy”--which, according to Charli, actually happened. The repetition of “I wish you’d talk, talk” on the chorus is so satisfying to listen to and a real earworm. The outro is another highlight--I am constantly muttering “talk to me in French / talk to me in Spanish / talk to me in your own made-up language.” Groovy.

“Von dutch” was the lead single off of BRAT, dropping in February. It’s another banger which walks the line between confident and bratty. It also features the line “do that littl? dance, without it, you'd be namel?ss” which is funny, considering that a remix of this track was dropped shortly after featuring Addison Rae, who got famous dancing on TikTok. Lines like “it's okay to just admit that you're jealous of me” are quintessentially BRAT and loop in my head constantly. Sonically “Von dutch” features pulsating and swirling electronic sounds along with a pounding beat--the perfect mixture to drive your car full speed off of a cliff. It’s one the most banger bangers on the album.

“Everything is romantic” has a concept that I absolutely love. It seeks to emphasize the beauty of romanticizing everything. It asks you to fully appreciate every moment that you get to be alive. The orchestral intro is an absolutely perfect touch. Here Charli finds the beauty in “bad tattoos on leather-tanned skin” and “Jesus Christ on a plastic sign”. This is BRAT at its core. BRAT summer is about finding the beauty in the odd and the paradoxical. This album cuts to the core of the human experience wrapped up in a hyperpop package--that’s just the versatility of Charli xcx. However, rather than lines about seeing the beauty in a rich European country, it would, in my irrelevant opinion, be more effective to describe the beauty of very mundane aspects of regular life. Italy or wherever is already romanticized, it isn’t revolutionary to be in a place where you can see “Pompeii in the distance” and think about how beautiful life is. I would have loved to see more appreciation for the beauty in the “ugly” parts of life, like bad tattoos. Nonetheless, a fantastic song.

“Rewind” is a song about wanting to go back to simpler times. I find some of the sound effects to be a bit corny, but her lyrics are quite genuine and real. This song, I believe, was meant to be played exclusively off of a DSi. Or filmed at a concert on a DSi. That would be the ideal setting and vibe. This song feels quite 100gecs-y as well.

“So I” is Charli’s tribute song to her friend and collaborator, SOPHIE, a pioneer in hyperpop who tragically passed away in early 2021. SOPHIE’s song “It’s Okay To Cry” is referenced in the chorus. Painful and haunting lyrics infuse this grief-drenched track with a raw pain that anyone who’s ever experienced grief may find comfort in. Particularly devastating is the end of the first verse: “You'd say, "Come on, stay for dinner" / I'd say, "No, I'm fine" (Now I really wish I'd stayed)”. “So I” is a lovingly crafted well-written tribute to a lost artist and Charli’s friend.

“Girl, so confusing” is a masterclass in songcraft. Charli taps into a very specific experience common to young women everywhere. Lyrics like “Can't tell if you wanna see me / falling over and failing / and you can't tell what you're feeling / I think I know how you feel” perfectly capture how difficult it can be to navigate interpersonal relationships as a young person. This song also generated speculation as to who it was about--lines like “people say we're alike / they say we've got the same hair / we talk about making music” narrowed it down to a similar artist in Charli’s realm that also had the same hair as her. “Think you should come to my party / and put your hands up” seemed to indicate that the person in question was Lorde, who famously sung “I'm kind of over gettin' told to throw my hands up in the air.” After letting speculation run rampant for two full weeks, Charli xcx and Lorde confirmed the rumors and dropped a remix of “Girl, so confusing” together, featuring a wicked smart verse and chorus written by Lorde. The whole verse is worth checking out, but my favorite Lorde-lines are “and it's just self-defense / until you're building a weapon” and “I never thought for a second / my voice was in your head.” Both the original and the remix are works of art. It IS so confusing to be a girl! AND it’s a banger and a half! “Girl, so confusing” is another incredible track that embraces the BRAT energy in every paradoxical relationship.

“Apple” is one of BRAT’s most underrated deep cuts in my opinion. It’s based off of the simple “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” metaphor. The beat is bumping and the premise is a universal experience that doesn’t get voiced often in music. I totally understand just wanting to drive all night instead of confronting familial issues. “I think the apple's rotten right to the core / from all the things passed down / from all the apples coming before / I split the apple down symmetrical lines / and what I find is kinda scary / makes me just wanna drive” is jarringly poetic for a dancepop song. Did I mention that it’s also a banger? BRAT is chocked full of club bangers that lyrically confront deep existential questions. Thus is the nature of BRAT.

“B2b” SLAPS! The vocals are basically instrumentation on this one. The pounding beat drives this track, but at around 0:43, the introduction of a sort of distant droning synth adds a fascinating air of anxiety to the track. It almost reminds me of a tornado siren. “Maybe you should run right back to her / I don't wanna go back.” At 1:32 a falling noise that sounds like a bomb dropping is introduced. My favorite part of the song is at 1:49 when “Took a long time” hits and the beat drops through the floor. Inject that synth in my veins, I feel like a space robot! This song feels like a deepcut despite being the second single.

This one’s for all my “Mean girls”!!! Another song to blast at the pregame, and a shout-out to haters everywhere. It is another quintessential BRAT track: real brats are out here hating on fake people. The piano which is introduced at 1:25? Shut up. Expert choice, perfect touch. Charli is brilliant. It becomes so jaunty! I’ll even be gracious and say that the Parry Gripp sounding voice distortion at 1:37 is camp. Truly an anthem for haters everywhere.

“I think about it all the time” caught me off guard at first, but has steadily grown on me. It is a simple lullaby expressing very elegantly another common female experience--feeling torn between the prospect of motherhood and familial fulfillment vs. potentially missing out for the sake of an independent life. Charli has a less common perspective since she is a public figure: “Should I stop my birth control? / cause my career feels so small / in the existential scheme of it all.” Overall another gorgeous song which speaks to the unspoken ponderings of women everywhere.

Here’s the thing about girls--they CAN do it both. They can go from the existential prospect of motherhood to the drug-fueled rave of BRAT’s closing track, “365”. THIS is what BRAT summer is all about--duality. This track is another club hit, and certainly many people will play it while “bumpin’ that”. At 1:05 the way the synth comes in sends fire through your veins. It makes you want to get up and start running and maybe snort something. At 1:20 the “no, I never go home, don't sleep, don't eat / just do it on repeat” goes SO hard. Getting absolutely drowned under the ocean of dubstep in the outro is also the perfect end to this album. With that, we circle back to the beginning and continue to bump Charli xcx’s BRAT on repeat (keep bumpin’ that).

Recommended If You Like: Caroline Polachek, SOPHIE, Rina Sawayama, 100gecs, Addison Rae
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