Release Date: Oct 11, 2024
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Atlantic
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A summer of bad tattoos on leather-tanned skin; of von-dutch baseball caps once again atop every head; of digital cameras capturing moments of parties your parents would be horrified to see; of mean girls dancing to their club classics. BRAT turned the world on its head, causing everyone to look back fondly on the era of glossy, tacky beauty, whilst looking forward to the events that will take the shape of the next party. Charli XCX made 'fun' important again.
"Just fucking destroy it." Around 35 years ago, those four words reinvented the concept of the remix. The Scottish rock band Primal Scream had given one of their songs to a young DJ named Andrew Weatherall to remix, but considered his first attempt too close to the original. So the band’s guitarist, Andrew Innes, gave him the above instructions.
Charli xcx's sixth studio album hit 2024 like a runaway train. It was supposed to remain a cult classic: 2022's 'Crash' was Charli's extravagant bid for the mainstream; 'brat' was a return to the club. The now-iconic chartreuse cover was even a budget-conscious decision, made on the assumption that few people would care about her new record anyway.
In an age when remix packages often include little more than sped-up and slowed-down versions of songs tailor-made for TikTok, Charli XCX's Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat takes a more holistic approach. The album serves as an extension of Charli's project as an artist, and rather than commission a bunch of DJs to reinterpret the songs, they're produced chiefly by Brat's original creators. In the wake of that album's success, fame--with all of its pleasures and, mostly, pitfalls--forms an even more central thematic core here.