Charli XCX’s sixth album is one, she says, that she was destined to create. Writing on X (fka Twitter) ahead of its release, she told followers: “i was born to make dance music.. i came from the clubs..[sic]”, addressing the sonic world she dives into on the project, adding: “xcx6 is the album i’ve always wanted to make.”
‘Brat’ follows 2022’s ‘Crash’, on which XCX “put her own spin on mainstream pop” for a record she dubbed her “major label sell-out” album, released as her initial record contract came to a close with Asylum (she recently re-upped with Asylum’s parent company Atlantic for ‘Brat’). Her sixth record shifts away from these sounds, and sees her pushing the limits of her own sonic world.
It’s something XCX has done throughout her career: take 2016’s future-facing EP ‘Vroom Vroom’, a release that divided critics at the time but has since won over cult adoration, or ‘How I’m Feeling Now’, a project XCX very publicly pulled together over the course of five and a half weeks during the pandemic (documenting the process online). While ‘Crash’ boasted more traditional pop sounds (take synth-pop lead single ‘Good Ones’, or ‘Beg For You’ which interpolates Eurodance belter ‘Cry for You’), with ‘Brat’ she fully commits to the dancefloor.
On the self-described “club record”, XCX offers pure party girl hedonism. Percolating beats, brash synths, left-field production and vocal lines that flit between bratty quips or honest one-liners. In the run-up to ‘Brat’’s release, XCX celebrated the catharsis of the club with events like her Boiler Room set (which received the most RSVPs in Boiler Room’s history), and by dropping singles like the fizzing ‘Club classics’ that more than live up to their name (and sees her assert: “I wanna dance to me”), and the rest of ‘Brat’ goes similarly harder that ever before.
‘Everything is romantic’ is a freefall of cinematic strings and vibrating industrial beats; while ‘Mean girls’, a slinky tribute to its titular personas non grata which sees XCX assert “This one’s for all my mean girls”, erupts into a piano-house flecked breakdown complete with Daft Punk-evoking robotic vocals. And at times ‘Girl, so confusing’ evokes XCX’s 2017 mixtape ‘Pop 2’, fusing it with a throbbing bassline and XCX’s half-spoken vocals.
Yet these heady songs also see XCX at her most raw, smuggling the reflections that spill out in the early hours of the morning through the guise of club bangers. ‘Rewind’ sees XCX dissect her own insecurities, the frank realisations (“Nowadays I only eat at the good restaurants / but honestly I’m always thinking about my weight”) spun over woozy synths. ‘So I’, a moment of quiet grief, sees XCX look at her relationship with the late electronic pioneer SOPHIE: “Always on my mind (every day, every night) / Your star burns so bright (why did I push you away?)”.
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And then there’s ‘I think about it all the time’ a song that details the worries of running out of time for motherhood, that sees XCX hush in its finale: “we had a conversation on the way home, should I stop my birth control / because my career feels so small, in the existential scheme of it all”.
It all paints a picture of who XCX is in 2024. Growing pains, grief and aching doubts come alongside self-confidence, celebration and the knowledge of the place XCX holds in the musical landscape – indeed, she kicks off ‘360’ with the knowing: “I went my own way and I made it / I’m your favourite reference baby”. With ‘Brat’, XCX demonstrates that going her own way will always sound pretty good.
Details
- Release date: June 5, 2024
- Record label: Atlantic