When English artist Charli XCX released her first remix album, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, on Oct. 11, a reasonable reaction from someone who hadn’t listened yet might’ve been: “Been there, done that.”
Pop culture dedicated summer 2024 to Charli’s sixth studio album, Brat. The record debuted at No. 3 on the charts and eventually became the 16th-highest-rated album of all time, according to Metacritic. It’s the origin of the social media phenomenon “Brat summer” – two hot months dedicated to neon green, rave music and unapologetic living.
So, a remix album in October might’ve seemed a little past its expiration date. Brat summer is over, after all. Can listeners handle any more synthy, detached, 2000s club music? What more can 17 remixes bring, even if they’re stacked with features all the way from Ariana Grande to Bon Iver?
Turns out, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat is a masterpiece – brand new in every way that matters. It’s still synthy – typical of Charli’s production style – but not nearly as much as its parent album, which has an almost ironic level of distortion. In place of Brat’s frivolity and irony are top-tier lyricism and emotional presence. The collaborations are strategically chosen, and the message is poignant.
It begins with two fairly traditional remixes. “360 (feat. Robyn & Yung Lean)” and “Club classics (feat. Bb trickz)” don’t stray from their originals too much, and are just as effective as openers.
The album earns its first thematic level-up, however, with “Sympathy is a knife (feat. Ariana Grande).” It’s an entirely new song, connected to its original by name only, and far more unabashed in its commentary on the pressures of fame.
“It’s a knife when you’re finally on top / ‘cause logically the next step is they want to see you fall to the bottom,” Charli sings.
A collaboration with a female artist of Grande’s caliber was strategic, too. As the album develops, the listener gets the sense that the many features are making a statement about how fame chips away at everyone who has it. Charli’s feelings are communal feelings among artists, and by inviting them to sing about it with her, she strengthens her message.
She does it again on “Von Dutch (feat. Addison Rae).” It’s a completely new song – new lyrics, new beat, new production. The original chorus’ repetitive, self-confident “I’m your number one” is replaced with an equally-confident but somehow freer “I’m just living that life.”
Lyrics like “You just wanna scream my name” point the song back at the music industry and the experience of fame – and that narrative is exacerbated by the feature of Addison Rae, who is currently rising from the ashes of TikTok fame as a controversial popstar.
But the album isn’t all commentary. A fundamental aspect of Brat was that it didn’t take itself too seriously, and that tongue-in-cheek aspect is preserved in songs like “Talk talk (feat. Troye Sivan)” and “Apple (feat. The Japanese House).” Any listener concerned that Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat would take all the brat out of Brat can rest assured that the aura lives on.
“Everything is romantic (feat. Caroline Polachek)” stands out as the most clever reversal of its parent song. The original describes mundane things the singer finds romantic in everyday life, as if she really does believe that romance lies in everything. Its remixed parallel, however, plunges the listener right into the darkness of industry success.
Charli and American singer Caroline Polachek sing through an international phone call, in which they lament the constant alertness demanded by fame and the hunger to keep up. Charli responds “It’s like you’re living the dream but you’re not living your life” to Polachek’s “I’m thinking ‘bout work all the time.”
Polachek’s voice drifts and whines over Charli’s hushed synth as she cleverly inverts the romantic imagery of the original, such as “Early nights in white sheets with lace curtains,” instead whispering, “Late nights in black silk in east London.” It’s the most poignant delve into the dark psychology of stardom on the remix album, and it goes where the romanticism of Brat did not. It says: If everything is romantic, nothing is.
A similar thing happens in “Rewind (feat. Bladee).” The sound of the song is largely the same – distorted and electronic. But the lyrics go further to describe the pressure of industry competition, and Bladee’s inflections blend with Charli’s voice smoothly, enforcing the message of the song and keeping it depressed where it could’ve unintentionally verged on anger.
One of the most remarkable things about Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat is the way it plays with its parent album. For example, the “still brat” part of its title could mean that Charli wants us to listen to the new album as an extension of Brat, or it could mean that it’s still “brat” in the way that social media defined the word over the summer: still unapologetic, still playful, still neon green and metallic.
That ambiguity continues as the songs build a dialogue with each other between albums. “So I” is a breakup song, and a decent one. Charli sings about an ex-lover lingering in her mind permanently. She ends with “I can cry, so I cry” before the music drifts off.
But “So I (feat. A.G. Cook)” is an upbeat song, dedicated to the story of meeting the lover that she mourns in the original version. It starts with “Now I wanna think about all the good times,” simultaneously continuing the narrative of “So I” while completely reversing its mood. Its melody calls back to the original, but in all other aspects it is a completely different song, communicating a different chapter of the same love story.
The inherent femininity of an album about impossible standards amid pop stardom is finally affirmed in “Girl, so confusing (feat. Lorde).” The lyrics are more complex and more blatant than in the original, and the feature fits in like a piece that was missing all along. Charli and Lorde illustrate the pressures of appearance put on female artists and discuss how they are often compared and pitted against each other, as well as how they never know if another artist genuinely wants to see them fail.
“People say we’re alike / They say we’ve got the same hair … Can’t tell if you wanna see me / Falling over and failing,” the pair sing, voices mingling indistinguishably throughout the track.
The album tapers off slightly after that, returning to more traditional remixes as it ends. Highlights include a depressed version of “I think about it all the time” with Bon Iver crooning in the background, his vocals further saddening the remix, and another clever reversal in “B2b (feat. Tinashe),” which was originally about returning to an unhappy relationship and is now about the tireless on-the-road lifestyle Charli experiences when touring – again playing into the theme of fame.
Overall, Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat is a stunning follow-up to an absolutely iconic album. It illustrates the after-effects of soaring fame with a rawness and depth beyond anything heard on the original Brat. It’s not past due. It doesn’t drag the original down. It plays call-and-response with its parent album in a way that makes it a thing unto itself, while also reminding us that the “Apple” doesn’t fall too far from the tree.