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Being that the intention of Brat was always to get back to Charli XCX’s musical roots (especially after her intentionally hyper-commercial album, Crash), it seemed inevitable that what amounts to a “mixtape” version of it would come out. Of course, it’s instead being referred to as a “remix album.” A genre that can be a notoriously hard sell unless you’re Madonna with You Can Dance or Dua Lipa with Club Future Nostalgia. But, in Charli’s case, there are two things in her favor: 1) the unstoppable nature of Brat summer that has turned into Brat autumn and 2) XCX long ago established herself as a mixtape queen with Number 1 Angel and Pop 2 (hell, even 14, Heartbreaks and Earthquakes and Super Ultra). And Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat (a riff on the title of Brat’s deluxe edition, Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not) still has that “at the cutting edge” feel. Except, this time around, her roster of guest musicians is even more A-list, including Ariana Grande, Lorde, Julian Casablancas and Billie Eilish.
Regardless, Charli hasn’t gone full-tilt diva by totally ignoring lesser-known artists (at least within the mainstream circuit) on the record. For example, BB Trickz, Bladee and The Japanese House. Perhaps all part of XCX’s bid to prove that, while she might have effectively “gone corporate,” she hasn’t forgotten the importance of the underground. Not just in terms of how it helped her come up in the world, but also to its ongoing influence on her creativity (in that sense, XCX is very Madonna-esque indeed).
To kick off the album, XCX opts for Robyn and Yung Lean to accompany her on “360,” one of the earliest remixes to show up (though “von dutch” featuring Addison Rae was the true OG of the Brat remixes) before anyone knew for certain that Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat was going to be a reality. Combining the “old” and the “new” in terms of selecting these two specific collaborators seems to be a pointed choice on Charli’s part, a “hat tip” to the idea that there is no new without recognizing those who came before to blaze a trail. And there’s no better epitome of that in the dance world than Robyn. Besides, as Charli once said, “When I listen to a Robyn pop song, I don’t feel like she’s just kind of saying something and not thinking; I feel like it’s really emotional.”
Plus, Robyn was an early supporter of Charli, with the latter having once told her idol during an interview, “I’ll never forget when we were on tour in Australia together years ago… You came over to me at some party where I was feeling really nervous and you said, ‘Don’t worry about what anyone else thinks of you. We’ll have fun together, being ourselves.’” And that’s just what they continue to do on the “360” remix (which retains its musical core, unlike most of the other remixes on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat), with Robyn boasting, “Your favorite pop star [Charli] is into me” (smacking of Chappell Roan bragging, “I’m your favorite artist’s favorite artist” [oui, a Sasha Colby homage]).
It’s with “Club Classics” featuring BB Trickz that the listener finally notices the true essence of a remix album, for the song sounds entirely different. Even if producers George Daniel (a.k.a. Charli’s fiancé) and TimFromTheHouse are sure to incorporate the now signature refrain of “365,” present in the lyrics, “When I’m in the club, yeah, I’m (bumpin’ that)/When I’m at the house, yeah, I’m (bumpin’ that)/365, party girl (bumpin’ that)/Should we do a little key? Should we have a little line?/When I, club, yeah I’m (bumpin’ that)/When I’m at the housе, yeah, I’m (bumpin’ that)/365, party girl (bumpin’ that).”
BB Trickz’ Tokischa-like inflection later shines through in her Spanish portion of the song that translates to, “Bb xcx is an automatic classic/Brr-brr, fashion killa even if the outfit is basic/I’m a brat even if I don’t have any plastic/Bounce like that, your boyfriend is a fanatic/I’m still a princess even if I walk around the hood/I’d give you a date, but I’m not in the mood/Baddie in the club, brat in the club/In the club, huh, I’m playing on loop/In the club (club, club), in the club.” Just as Charli has been…and not only during Brat summer, but for the majority of her career. So, yes, it’s only natural that she’d want to “dance to [herself],” what with such an impressive oeuvre of danceable ditties.
Ones that are even danceable when the subject matter of the lyrics happens to be more serious. As is the case on both the original and remix versions of “Sympathy is a knife.” And while many speculated that the song was about Taylor Swift (as they alternated between guessing if “Girl, so confusing” was about Lorde or Marina), therefore that Swift might pull a Lorde and “work it out on the remix,” the presence of Ariana Grande instead makes it seem all the more possible that the song is about Taylor. And that she didn’t actually “shake it off” the way she led the public to believe by praising Charli’s brilliance post-Brat. However, perhaps to take attention away from the whole “Taylor theory,” the new iteration of “Sympathy is a knife” centers on the altered perspective on fame Charli has gotten since her “overnight” success with Brat. So it is that she opens the song with, “It’s a knife when you know they’re waiting for you to choke/It’s a knife when a journalist does a misquote/It’s a knife when a friend is suddenly steppin’ on your throat/It’s a knife when they say that you’ve been doing things you don’t.” Suddenly understanding that she doesn’t exist in the same niche bubble anymore, XCX has had the same rude wake-up call about fame this year as Chappell Roan (who has been around for far less time). Addressing the complications of this newfound popularity, XCX adds, “It’s a knife when your old friends hate your new friends/When somebody says, ‘Charli, I think you’ve totally changed’/It’s a knife when somebody says they like the old me and not the new me/And I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is she?’” This question also seems to be a foil to her asking, “Who the fuck are you?/I’m a brat when I’m bumpin’ that” on “365.”
Dissecting the pains (sharp as a knife) that have come with the pleasures of fame, Charli expresses the rightful fear, “‘Cause it’s a knife when you’re finally on top/‘Cause logically the next step is they wanna see you fall to the bottom.” Perhaps that’s part of why XCX already announced her intention to take a break from music for a while during The Brat Interview with Zane Lowe, citing her desire to focus on acting now (indeed, she has starring roles lined up in Faces of Death and I Want Your Sex). And yes, she also discussed her hyper-awareness of the fact that everything she does musically in the future will now be compared to this. Her blessing, thus, also being her curse.
As for Grande, she has her own unique set of knife digs to explore via the lyrics, “It’s a knife when you know they’re counting on your mistakes/It’s a knife when you’re so pretty, they think you must be fake/It’s a knife when they dissect your body on the front page/It’s a knife when they won’t believe you, why should you explain?/It’s a knife when the mean fans hate the nice fans/When somebody says, ‘Ari, I think you’ve totally changed’ (no shit)/It’s a knife when somebody says they like the old me and not the new me/And I’m like, ‘Who the fuck is she?’” Because, needless to say, there is this constant pressure that musicians—particularly female ones—undergo to reinvent yet also “stay the same” a.k.a. appeal to their audience in the same way. Which makes for a double-edged sword more than a mere knife.
In typical Brat fashion, the track starts to sound like an entirely different song by the end, with Grande layering on her “uhs” and “mms” as Charli admits, “All this expectation is a knife.” In other words, when it comes to success, be careful what you wish for. A theme also present on “I might say something stupid.” Because, yes, to add further “insult” to Taylor’s “injury,” “Sympathy is a knife” is followed up by a song featuring her The Tortured Poets Department muse, Matty Healy. Billed, of course, as The 1975 (along with production from Jon Hopkins, credited as part of the feature). Indeed, it feels as though Charli has “gifted” this entire song to him as a space to explore some of the emotional and reputational fallout that occurred after his dalliance with Taylor Swift—during which he was picked apart for being far too skeevy for such a “nice girl.” Now engaged to Gabbriette (name-checked in the “cool/mean girl” anthem that is “360”—likely first and foremost for her A-plus resting bitch face), it’s obvious that in the divide between Healy and Swift, Charli has far more allegiance to those in the Healy camp (including her own fiancé, who serves as The 1975’s drummer). So it is that she gives him the opportunity to reflect on his post-Swift feelings as she, too, joins in on the verse, “Rot in my house in L.A./Thinkin’ of givin’ up everything/Now I’m watchin’ what I say/These interviews are so serious/My friends went through this before, yeah/It happens to lots of guys/Medicine makеs him a problem/‘I’m famous, but I’m not quite.’” After each musician’s tumultuous past year, the latter sentiment no longer applies.
To lighten the mood of existential dread on the previous two tracks, Charli brings in her go-to, Troye Sivan, for a feature on “Talk Talk.” Like Healy, he’s given plenty of vocal time to paint the picture, “Are we getting too close?/You’re leaving things in my head/I’ll be honest, you scare me/My life’s supposed to be a party (do you ever think about me?)/‘Cause we talk that talk, yeah we talk all night/And the more I know you, the more I like you/Can you stick with me, maybe just for life?/And say what’s on your mind?” Considering the song is an homage to Charli’s feelings of shyness around George Daniel before they started dating, it holds a special place in her heart. Maybe that’s why she secured Dua Lipa to contribute her own Spanish and French vocals to the track. As a matter of fact, Lipa was generous enough to do so without even wanting to be credited as a feature on the song. Because what’s more Brat than being aware that everybody is going to know it’s your voice anyway? No attribution required.
For “von dutch,” however, all the credit goes to Addison Rae for remaking it into something entirely new—while still maintaining the braggadocious vibe of the original. So it is that she flexes, with Lily Allen-esque brattiness (think: “URL Badman”), “I’m just living that life/While you’re sittin’ in your dad’s basement/Bet you’re disappointed that I’m shinin’/I’m just living that life/Von Dutch, cult classic, but I still pop.” Charli then brings the conversational meta tone present on many of these remixes by describing, “Linked with Addison on Melrose [a phrase that has since been immortalized in t-shirt form]/Bought some cute clothes and wrote this in the studio.” The two then speak to the overarching theme of the song—that you can “hate” someone and still be obsessed with them, ergo, “If you don’t like me and still watch everything I do, bitch, you’re a fan”—by concluding with the verse, “All these girls are like, ‘Ah, can I get a picture?’/And then they go online like, ‘Just kidding, I hate you’ (Von Dutch, cult classic, but I still pop)/‘Cause we’re just living that life.”
A romantic life, in addition to a glamorous one. But lately, the romantic aspect for Charli has been tinged with a bit of taint thanks to the whole global fame thing. To that point, as mentioned, it is with this remix album/mixtape that Charli also had a chance to speak on how her perspective has changed since her post-Brat existence. Something also particularly explored on the new version of “Everything is romantic” with Caroline Polachek (paying back the favor of Charli remixing “Welcome to My Island” back in 2023). Among the most standout remixes, Polachek’s ethereal voice delivers instantly classic lines like, “Late nights in black silk in East London (everything is)/Church bells in the distance/Free bleeding in the autumn rain/Fall in love again and again.” Obviously, that line about free bleeding is super witchy just in time for “spooky season.” For yes, the “spooky aesthetic” is also very Brat.
Compared to the unabashed romantic portraits Charli gave in the original (inspired by a trip to, where else, Italy), there is a more bittersweet, macabre tone to the “romantic” imagery in this version (e.g., “Walk to the studio soaking wet/ACAB tag on a bus stop sign”). And that gets played up by a dialogue exchange between Charli and Caroline (not unlike the conversational tone in “Girl, so confusing” with Lorde) that starts, “Charli calls from a hotel bed/Hungover on Tokyo time [Billie Eilish will also refer to Charli’s Tokyo predilections on “Guess”]/‘Hey, girl, what’s up, how you been?’/‘I think I need your advice’/‘That’s crazy, I was just thinking of you, what’s on your mind?’/‘I’m trying to shut off my brain/I’m thinking ‘bout work all the time/‘It’s like you’re living the dream/But you’rе not living your life.’” Polachek’s wise aphorism cuts Charli like a knife (comme sympathie) as she replies, “I knew that you would relatе/I feel smothered by logistics/Need my fingerprints on everything/Trying to feed my relationship/Am I in a slump?/Am I playing back time?/Did I lose my perspective?/Everything’s still romantic, right?”
Suddenly questioning, in many ways, her own “street cred” now that she’s gone full-tilt mainstream (unintentional or not), Charli acknowledges being consumed by the competitiveness and vacuity that comes with being an international pop phenomenon. Complete with the Skims and H&M campaigns. At the end of the song, all Polachek can offer is: “All things change in the blink of an eye/Charli calls from a photo set/Living that life is romantic, right?” Alas, probably not with a million cameras on everything you do.
The sense of regret and wistfulness on “Everything is romantic” also appears on “Rewind” featuring Bladee (another Swedish rapper à la Yung Lean). And while XCX might have excised her body image issues out of this version (e.g., “Nowadays, I only eat at the good restaurants/But honestly, I’m always thinkin’ ‘bout my weight”), she still has plenty to say about the fresh slew of inadequacies she feels with her elevated fame status. So it is that she admits, “Maybe I need a reality check/Sometimes now I just gotta say less [the curse of being far more scrutinized than ever before]/Wanna see my face all up in the press/When I don’t, sometimes I get a little bit depressed.” Ah, such a Leo sentiment, to boot. As for her honorary home, Charli remarks, “L.A. makes me so competitive/Sometimes I wanna wake up dead.” As one can hear, the lyrics are even more candid (and slightly Lana Del Rey-esque) than on the original Brat.
Charli then even throws in a nod to Britney Spears and Cher with the lines, “I must confess, I’m under stress/Turn back the time again.” For added elegiac effect (not just for the way her life used to be, but the person she was at that time), the two woefully chant, “Requiem for everything/Rewind, remind me” to close out the song. In many regards, as a matter of fact, this remix album feels like Charli ringing the knell for the period of her life that came before Brat. One she’ll never be able to recreate now that “being fringe” isn’t something she lay can claim to any longer.
Another reason to want to rewind to that time when it was all much less complicated? SOPHIE was still alive. As the core subject on “So I,” the remix version with A.G. Cook is possibly even more bittersweet as Charli reflects on some of their best times together. For while the original’s lyrical focus was on the absence of SOPHIE, the remix wishes to replicate the experience of her presence by remembering the formative experiences they shared. Thus, Charli sings, “Now I wanna think about all the good times/Me and A.G. on Mulholland/Crazy Uber, straight from a video shoot/Got birthday cake on the way.” The birthday cake was for SOPHIE and the video shoot was for “After the Afterparty.” As Charli told Lowe during The Brat Interview, the cake was shaped and styled like a burger and was one of those “gross” grocery store kinds (even if Gelson’s isn’t exactly a cheapo grocery store). But surely, to SOPHIE, it was the thought that counted. And she undoubtedly would have been touched by the numerous ways in which XCX still continues to carry on her musical legacy in her own music (with the “So I” remix sounding decidedly SOPHIE-esque from a sonic standpoint).
As for the the next song, a remix of “Girl, so confusing” with Lorde, the internet already “went crazy” for it. But hearing it within the framework of the entire remix album revitalizes its potency and further cements it as a truly standout moment in the Brat universe (rounded out by Lorde joining XCX onstage to perform it during the Sweat Tour at Madison Square Garden). As is “Apple” thanks to its viral TikTok moment that had people of all ages imitating the choreography. Alas, the entire tone and motif of “Apple” is altered with the presence of The Japanese House (who, incidentally, got her start with some help from Matty Healy). For, rather than continuing to be a song about generational trauma, it becomes a song about relationship trauma, with Charli and The Japanese House lamenting, “When you made me (I’ve been looking at you so long, now I only see me)/You made me so sad, so sad.” The idea that someone can “make” you in a relationship—as though you never really existed before—is not uncommon among women, who so often can’t help but think that “another half” will be the solution to the inherent emptiness they feel.
Hence, when that half is lost, one winds up with sentiments such as, “Sometimes when I go home/It doesn’t feel like home/Don’t know if you can hear me/Inside this conversation/Sometimes when I go home/It doesn’t feel like home/Silently pack my things, get in the car/I just wanna drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive.” So even if “I think the apple’s rotten right to the core/From all the things passed down/From all the apples coming before” didn’t make the cut—despite being a key part of the original—at least “I just wanna drive, drive, drive” did. The Japanese House also further, that’s right, drives home the failed relationship point with the verse, “Somebody asked me how you’re doing/And I make excuses and I say you’re fine/I keep trying not to think about you, but I/Seem to think about you all the time.” So it is that “Apple” is no longer really “Apple” at all.
Less jarring in terms of its musical (though not lyrical) transformation is “B2b” featuring Tinashe—herself coming off a year when she was finally given more credit and recognition thanks to the viral success of “Nasty.” Charli refers to each of their “sudden blowups” in the lyrics, “‘Hey, Tinashe, wanna do this song?’ [Brat always has to keep it text-level conversational]/Two days later, got the vocals cut/Oh my god, we really blew the fuck up/Now everybody wants what we got.” Of course, Britney Spears fans would argue that Tinashe already blew up long ago by being a feature on 2016’s “Slumber Party.” And yes, her debut album was all the way back in 2014, yet the masses only seemed to catch on with Quantum Baby’s “Nasty” this year—much the same as they did with Brat. Charli and Tinashe have made six and seven albums, respectively, but it took all the way until this moment to be celebrated on such a scale. This is why Tinashe has a perfect right to boast, “Look at me now, better than before…/Didn’t come out of nowhere, they been sleeping on me, I’m bored.”
While the term “back to back” had a different connotation in the original (including the allusion to B2B DJs—a.k.a. two DJs “spinning” at the same time), here it refers to the endless slog of work it takes to get to the career high Charli and Tinashe are currently experiencing, with Charli declaring, “All the way from Los Angeles to France/Dix ans plus tard et toujours en place/Yeah, we work hard, yeah, we work hard (back to back), in addition to, “I travel ‘round the world to fifteen countries in four days and/After I get off stage, I’m on set shooting ‘til the a.m./I’m fuckin’ tired, but I love it and I’m not complainin’/Oh, shit, I kinda made it (yeah, we work hard, yeah).” All of this is to say, of course, that Charli is a believer in the inherent tenets of capitalism.
As for the next track, Charli got the rightful notion that Julian Casablancas would be the ideal collaborator for it. After all, in the original version of “Mean girls,” Charli alludes to a New York scene queen via the depiction, “Yeah, she’s in her mid-twenties, real intelligent/And you hate the fact she’s New York City’s darling.” Just as Casablancas and his fellow band members in The Strokes were for a good portion of the 00s. Something Charli alludes to during The Brat Interview when she says, “It was fun on the remix album to bring all of these people in, some of whom aren’t particularly connected to the club world…when you would think about it on the surface, but actually, Julian Casablancas, for example… When I think about Julian, [he] has this sort of history with Daft Punk and also…you talk about New York downtown, it’s like, people were, like, partying then.” That is, in the 2000s. Before the obscene digital documentation wrought by social media took over everything and scared people out of being full-tilt debauched (lest the evidence showed up later on the internet).
“Mean girls,” suffice it to say, sounds like the perfect soundtrack for one of the antagonists in a 2000s movie (Regina George being the leader of the pack, duh). As for the remix, it brings the middle part breakdown of the song (the one that sounds like Mr. G from Summer Heights High composed it) to the beginning, thus taking on a new life and meaning with Casablancas in the driver’s seat. Naturally, when one utters the name “Julian Casablancas,” the automatic meaning is “The Strokes” (and vice versa)—just as it is the case with “Matty Healy” and “The 1975.” That said, there is, of course, an undeniable The Strokes tincture to the song. At a certain moment, both Charli and Casablancas seem to be channeling their inner empathetic mean girl energy by announcing in the bridge, “I won’t break down, I won’t/Not I, oh no/It is my fault I know it now, oh no/I gave you everything/Too much, it’s true/Then took it all away/In front of you.” And yet, in another verse, Casablancas seems to be the one who was slighted by a mean girl when he recounts, “I don’t understand/What you’re gonna do/I followed the rules/I took the abuse/I don’t understand/Where you’re coming from/I downed all my pills/I love you the most/Be with, with me/Thought you could talk.” The last sentence bearing a faint hint of the same earnestness of wanting to communicate with the object of one’s desire/affection in “Talk Talk.”
The nebulous, arcane nature of the lyrics are almost inscrutable as a mean girl herself—not to mention the origins of how she became so mean. That said, Casablancas seems to taunt, “Kept it vague so you could guess.” Alas, “Guess” doesn’t appear for two more tracks, with the emotional “I think about it all the time” following “Mean girls.” And who better to exude the kind of emotionalism necessary for this particular song than Bon Iver?—even though it’s a bit of an odd choice to feature a man on a song about one’s biological clock ticking. Though maybe it’s a subtle way of showing Taylor she’s not the only one who can get Bon Iver featured on a song. What’s more, Iver once covered the Bonnie Raitt’s “Nick of Time,” itself a song that speaks to women’s fear of it being “too late” vis-à-vis having a baby. With the Raitt reference in mind, it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the song has undertones of an 80s power ballad. And in contrast to other remixes, one of the more recognizable verses were kept: “So, we had a conversation on the way home, ‘Should I stop my birth control?’/‘Cause my career still feels small in the existential scheme of it all.”
Despite that, Charli can’t help but get caught up in the vicious circle of her increasingly successful career, adding in the new verse, “First off, you’re bound to the album/Then you’re locked into the promo/Next thing, three years have gonе by (scared to run out of time)/Me and Gеorge sit down and try to plan for our future/But there’s so much guilt involved when we stop working/‘Cause you’re not supposed to stop when things start working, no.” More candidly still: “I’m so scared to run out of time.” Then putting none too fine a point on the Raitt tribute, XCX concludes, “I think about it all the time (time, time, t-time, t-time, time)/I found love, baby (time, time, t-time, t-time, time)/‘Cause our love ran out of time (time, time, t-time, t-time, time)/Love in the nick of time (time, time, t-time, t-time, time)/I found love (time, time, t-time, t-time, time).” So did Rihanna, albeit in a hopeless place. And she managed to have two children, so surely Charli can do the same (even if Rihanna appears to have given up music altogether as part of focusing on this new era in her life…granted, she had stopped putting out albums long before the kids came along).
The closer on the original Brat, “365,” now benefits from Shygirl’s presence on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. And yes, the pair already showcased the track all over the U.S. during the Sweat Tour (with Shygirl serving as Charli and Troye’s “special guest”). This remix is also among the few that preserves a large portion of its original self, with Shygirl contributing just one new verse: “Too hot, when I sweat, just lick me/Touch and squeeze when the bassline hits me/Are you gonna ride me?/Harder than a BPM, beat match me (yeah, I’m lovin’ that)/Can’t see straight, yeah, I love it when the pill hits/Back of the booth, bitch, guest list, VIP/Party don’t start ‘til a bitch come find me/Party girl, party girl (yeah, I’m lovin’ that).”
That “Guess” featuring Billie Eilish should now serve as the coda for this edition of Brat is part and parcel of the album being Brat’s “Bizarro World” flipside (complete with the font on the cover literally being flipped). The Black Lodge to Brat’s White Lodge (now that Kyle MacLachlan has been deemed “Mr. Brat” by the Brat herself). With Charli perhaps figuring that going even more niche again might get her back to “herself”—who the fuck is she?, to quote the new “Sympathy is a knife”—after all this accelerated fame.
By the same token, Charli remarked during The Brat Interview, “From before I made Brat I knew, I was, like, ‘We’re gonna do a remix album.’ Because we’re gonna make so many edits that it’s gonna just…we’re gonna want to do it because they’ll be so much music and it will be really cool to have, like, kind of a channel to put it all out there.” “Cool” it is. And also perhaps even cooler and more ambitious than any of her previous mixtapes.
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Genna Rivieccio
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