Welcome to the second half of Split Record Review this week, where James is following up on Henry’s coverage of “brat” by Charli XCX.
A tour de force of 2024, Charli’s most successful album created a movement behind its iconic cover and her sassy sentiments. Needless to say, alongside Charli, the producers and featured artists were the biggest driving force behind “brat” entering the zeitgeist as aggressively as it did. As a Charli fan for roughly five years, what does James have to say? Will he go against Henry’s thoughts from yesterday?
A wide range of people have heard Charli in her previous evolution during the early-to-mid 2010s with “Boom Clap” or her feature on Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy.” For a new generation of listeners — some of whom are college students who grew up on her early output — to hear Charli at her most bold and brash gives me hope in the general public’s taste.
Frequent collaborator and producer A.G. Cook really outdid himself production-wise, being instrumental in giving “brat” its signature club sound. His spread of production credits is almost universal across Charli’s most forward-thinking projects, including 2017’s appropriately named “Pop 2,” 2019’s “Charli” and 2020’s “How I’m Feeling Now,” yet something about “brat” stands out among the rest.
The unbridled confidence displayed on “360” is accentuated by the bouncy beat courtesy of Cook and pop mastermind Cirkut. The “Bumpin’ that” refrain keeps the energy going into the second verse with a crazy cold open: “That city sewer slut’s the vibe.”
Following a shoutout to Cook, the typical song structure repeats and concludes just over the two-minute mark. One of the album’s biggest strengths is its length-to-song ratio, packing 15 songs at 41 minutes on the standard version, so many of these songs are perfectly paced.
“Club classics” balances Charli’s ego with her appreciation of others. The unfortunate contrast between “I wanna dance with George,” referring to her fiancé, and “I want to dance to SOPHIE,” a friend and equally boundary-pushing artist who passed away in 2021, is sad. But with a wonky beat rivaling anything off Danny Brown’s “Old,” I hope millions of people rave to this song while it remains in circulation.
“Sympathy is a knife” is a killer song that was strong enough to pull Ariana Grande for a remix on “brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still brat,” an album of remix tracks paired with the originals. Given Charli’s multiple references to her partner in the song, Ariana’s transparency about her partners through the years has been comparatively questionable.
“Von dutch” is pretty incredible with its infectious refrain “I’m your number one,” serving as a perfect single for the record. Despite its six different producers, “Everything is romantic” has SOPHIE written all over it from the constant tempo changes to its overall complexity, though it could’ve been trimmed 30 seconds or so.
“Rewind” brings the energy back at the album’s midpoint, being one of three tracks to be produced by Cirkut and Cook; the other two are the intro and outro. I enjoy Charli’s reserved delivery as she brings enough to the track, but she mainly lets the beat do the talking.
For the final mention of SOPHIE, “So I” is evidently about her considering the reference to “It’s Okay to Cry.” She became pretty prolific during her lifetime, yet to see her legacy prominently on “brat” is heartwarming, especially on such a wonderfully paced highlight on the album.
Since Henry touched on the next few tracks, and the lackluster “B2b” stretches out one phrase more than the greedy producers behind XXXTentacion’s posthumous records, let’s talk about “Mean girls.” With some of the most lyrically dense verses on “brat,” Charli seemingly criticizes the “mean girl” archetype by dropping crazy lines like “You said she’s anorexic and you heard she likes when people say it.” The lively piano is also an excellent addition in a solo midway through the song.
“I think about it all the time” is another cut that listeners who like to know their favorite artists in a parasocial manner can clamor over. The amateur tone of “It was ice-cold, playing demos on my iPhone” strips the celebrity side of Charli away, and “Should I stop my birth control? ‘Cause my career feels so small / In the existential scheme of it all,” demonstrates her balance between work, artistry and family life at large.
With “365” ending the album as it started, it’s safe to say the journey that “brat” takes the listener on results in more than a simple party album. To have Charli at the forefront of music at this point is very refreshing because other popular girl bosses — some of whom are featured on the remix album like Billie Eilish — have traded the innovation that made them famous for a safe radio sound that appeases a wider audience yet alienates core fans. Charli hasn’t done this, and I don’t see that changing for the rest of her career.