by Jacob Garcia
Thousands of years ago, Plato suggested that if a man lived his entire life in a cave, he would believe the shadows on the wall were reality. Hundreds of years ago or something, Nietzsche said we killed intrinsic morality. Now, in the year 2024, Charli XCX, obviously well-trained in these teachings, dares to ask us a new question: “What is Brat?”
This question has puzzled many, myself included, since the album’s release in early June. Brat Summer was an inescapable phenomenon, even for those of us who may live in caves. Charli XCX has long offered us chaotic and emotional pop bangers that live on the edge of the mainstream and the underground, one such example being 2020’s How I’m Feeling Now, a manic and emotional set of songs depicting love and glamor during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. But even with attempts at commercial success such as 2022’s Crash, it always felt like Charli would never have her well-deserved superstar moment – until it happened with Brat, an album so infectious that even the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris has co-signed it.
Why I personally love Brat is that it’s Charli’s best sequenced and most conceptual work yet. The album begins with ‘360’, an opener with a ringtone-worthy synth line and loads of boasts centered around her celebrity status (“I’m your favorite reference, baby”), and quickly carries this energy into ‘Club Classics’, a fast-paced anthem. As the beat drops, she sings about dancing to her own songs in the club – but also the songs of hyperpop icons such as A.G. Cook and the late and great SOPHIE, the latter of whom the song’s thick elastic bass is very reminiscent of.
From this initial batch of songs, it’s clear that to be Brat, you have to party like crazy. But as the album progresses, a cast of dark shadows emerges. Brat’s exciting pop experimentation is underscored by many themes of body insecurity that makes much of the album feel frenetic and anxious rather than controlled and triumphant. ‘Sympathy Is A Knife’ details her aforementioned struggles to break into the mainstream and built-up resentment toward other pop girls who she longs to be like. A similar motif is revisited on ‘Girl So Confusing’, a 2000s-esque electropop house track, long rumored to be about pop icon Lorde – a rumor confirmed on the fantastic and vulnerable remix with Lorde herself. Even the album’s love letter to the underground pop scene strikes a sad note. When the album came out, I found myself fighting back tears as Charli mourned the passing of aforementioned PC Music legend SOPHIE on the ballad ‘So I’. The song takes both musical and lyrical cues from the producer’s innovative body of work but its heart lies in its message. Much like how the culture of pop music drove a wedge between Charli and Lorde, it’s implied that Charli’s idolization of SOPHIE created an artificial distance between them that she deeply regrets, making for one of the most emotionally resonant moments in Charli’s career. Like many moments on the album, it makes you question the meaning of everything.
Though Brat has many deep pits of Nietzschean nihilism, it remains a dynamic experience of yin and yang. Everything Is Romantic, my personal favorite track on the album, depicts the beauty in the trashy and vain, and hedonistic. The song has beautiful orchestration and hard-hitting beats with verses and choruses that dramatically alternate in speed. Charli seems inspired to reflect on her lifestyle as she goes on late night drives around the beautiful Italian countryside. Charli finds she has been limited by what she can find in her party lifestyle alone, much like prisoners stuck in their caves. As Charli’s pitch-shifted vocals repeat “fall in love, again and again,” over a gorgeous sample and soaring strings, the album reaches both peak beauty and despair. There’s something neverending about Brat – as evidenced both by its status as the sound of the summer and by its closer ‘365’, a defining statement in what it means to be Brat. ‘365’ is much messier than its sister track ‘360’, it’s similarly hedonistic, but you walk away from Brat with the feeling you can do anything. There’s a distinct sense of self-love that you feel after listening to the album’s trials and tribulations. The emergent message of Brat seems to also be one of camaraderie among women. After enlightening herself by leaving the cave, she now graces us with a more epic form of partying. Perhaps, Charli is a Brat when she’s “bumping” illicit substances. But, perhaps, all one needs to be a Brat is to keep bumping Brat. I know I can’t stop being Brat.
