Album Review: BRAT

Technically this is a review of “Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not”

Long-time Dang Dude readers know that I am a huge Charli XCX fan. For the last couple of years, one of her tunes has usually ended up on my “Best Songs of 20XX” list. I always try to put more than one on there, but I restrain myself in the end. Recently she’s been on a hot streak, releasing at least one certified banger every twelve months. It’s really impressive. Most of these songs have been singles, however, and it’s been a while since we got a full album. So, when she dropped Brat a few weeks ago I was excited to listen and review it. Despite my standom, I promise to bring the same rigor and objectivity that I do to everything in this newsletter.

As is quite common these days, Charli XCX had been releasing singles and music videos in the weeks leading up to the full album. “Von Dutch” and  “Club Classics” have been out for a while, building hype for the new tunes. There were also the usual press hits and the beginnings of a since re-worked stadium tour. I don’t always love this roll-out strategy – so common that even The Decemberists are doing it – but it worked here, increasing rather than stifling my enthusiasm for the record. Even better, a couple of days after the release date, she released an additional three songs, calling the new release Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not. I’ll review those new tunes here too.

BRAT is Charli XCX’s pean to the club. Specifically, club bangers. While XCX has always worked in this general area, she is after all most known for the GOAT Millennial dance hit “I Love It,” she’s never gone full club maven before. I’ve seen her work described as “art hyper-pop” and other early 2010s Pitchfork gobbledegook. Basically, a lot of the time her songs are just a little too weird to become big dance hits outside of some Columbia grad’s apartment they turned into a “neo-disco pop-up.” That doesn’t mean that they’re bad, it just means that they aren’t as easily accessible. That changed with this album. In just under 50 minutes of songs that make up Brat and the three extra singles, XCX manages to put together a group of songs that will have you dancing until 4 am, crying and laughing with your friends the whole time. Not too bad.

This isn’t all to say that Brat is like bro-EDM, or all radio hits. It’s still got the intriguingly off-kilter choices that XCX is known for. Bass that makes you want to use adjectives like “squnchy” to describe it, personal lyrics, and drums that stutter in ways you never imagined possible. “Mean girls” is a great example of this. It’s imminently danceable, and at first glance sounds like something you’d hear from a headliner at Tomorrowland. But dig a little deeper, and you see the twisty corners and squiggly lines that XCX draws all over the track. The piano line in the middle of the song is a delight to behold. Immediately recognizable without being boring or rote. Something that is wildly hard to do.

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It would be impossible to not talk about SOPHIE’s influence on this album. SOPHIE, who produced a lot for Charli XCX until tragically passing in January 2021, can be heard all over this album. The bright sounds, loud drums, and raw emotionality are all trademarks of SOPHIE’s production. “So I” is about SOPHIE, a beautiful tribute to their collaboration and friendships. In a lot of ways this is Charli XCX’s tribute to the skills and art of SOPHIE.

While I’ve set this album up as if it’s all straight 120 bpm heaters, the album has a few introspective moments as well. Songs like “I think about it all the time,” “I might say something stupid,” and “Everything is romantic” bring down the tempo a bit, allowing XCX to explore the more emotional side of her work. While some of the lyrics fall a little flat, generally they work, not only as a breath of fresh air, but as songs in and unto themselves. XCX really lets explores sonic textures on these songs, involving new instruments, sounds, and drums in exciting ways. The use of haze effects – or whatever the technical term is for what she did here – on “I might say something stupid” is masterful. 

This all being said, the album is a little long. Albums have been trending longer since the rise of digital platforms and the end of the physical restraints of CDs, records, and cassette tapes. Every single Drake release is like twenty songs and two hours long now. It’s ridiculous and as much a label-pushed profit grab as it is artists taking as many shots at getting a hit as they can. While Charli XCX doesn’t fully fall into this trap, songs like “Rewind,”  “Sympathy is a knife,” and “Spring Breakers” could probably have been left on the drawing-room floor, or released as B-sides at a later date. They’re fine, but nothing special, creating some unnecessary dead space on the album as a whole.

I’m not going to rank my favorite tracks off the record or anything, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say something about my two favorite tracks on the album, “B2b” and “Hello goodbye.” “B2b” sounds like what the Daft Punk Tron soundtrack should have been. It’s dark, propulsive, and makes you want to race around on a light-speeder while being chased by allegories for the evils of techno-capitalism. I think that’s what those movies are about. “Hello goodbye” is like a lost Cascada hit, full of muted keys, chirpy melody lines, and a chorus build-up that makes you feel like you’re ascending to heaven. It’s what I imagine plays when you pass through the pearly gates and enter God’s 24/7/365 dance club.

Okay, that’s it. If you haven’t listened to this yet, go do it now. This is best listened to on a hot-ass summer Saturday when you’re deciding what to do with your friends that night after hanging out at the beach all day. Or just like in your car on a Monday too I guess.

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