In a victory lap for the success of her most recent album, Charli xcx released brat and it’s completely different but also still brat on Oct. 15. The tracklist consists of the original songs from Charli’s album brat, released earlier this year, along with remixes to all the songs, each with a collaborator. While these remixes are a fun way to bookend brat’s moment in popular culture, the remakes fall well short of what I expected from Charli and her collaborators.
Upon its release in June, Charli xcx’s brat quickly became a massive success musically and culturally. The album’s bright-green cover and low-resolution text became instantly recognizable, and the term Brat Summer evolved into a seasonal mantra across the internet.
With brat becoming one of the most groundbreaking pop records of the decade, paired with features from pop icons including Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande and Lorde, the expectations for the new album were high.
While I didn’t expect the tracks on the remix to be pound-for-pound improvements on the original, I thought they would generally stick to the original instrumentals with some variation. Instead, some of the remixes only resemble the original song by name.
“B2b,” featuring R&B star Tinashe, lacks the instrumental layering of the original and goes nowhere for its entire duration. Even more glaringly, “Club classics,” featuring rapper Bb Trickz, turns a song full of bouncy synths into one that is poorly mixed and claustrophobic. However, some tracks, such as “Von dutch,” featuring former TikTok star Addison Rae, do not stray far from their originals and provide a compelling listen.
Although the remixed instrumentals are mediocre across the board, the features vary significantly in quality. “I think about it all the time,” featuring folk band Bon Iver, sticks to the introspective themes of the original track, with the band’s piercing vocals giving the song life.
An issue with the project’s lyrical contents is its departure from what made brat so unique. In the original, Charli often sang about her insecurities with validation, body image and friendships. On the remixed versions, these themes are seemingly abandoned, instead replaced with comments about the success of brat and the issues she has with being ultra-famous. While these changed lyrics could be a sign of personal growth for Charli, it is unnecessary to rewrite the meanings of songs and pass them off as remixes.
By far, the standout track on the project is “Girl, so confusing,” featuring pop artist Lorde. Shortly after the original song’s release, fans caught on to how Charli wrote about people’s comparisons between her and Lorde. It was no surprise then, that the first single released for the remixed album was the artists’ collaboration. The song adds thematically to the original as Lorde’s verse directly responds to the questions posed by Charli in the original. Overall, the track is the best performance from a featured artist on the entire album.
Charli’s brat and it’s completely different but also still brat is a disappointing-yet-afforded misstep by the artist after the release of her groundbreaking album brat. While the original songs left Charli with many great opportunities to interestingly collaborate with other artists, the stylistic and lyrical aspects of the project fell short of what was possible. I am left wondering why a remix of all 19 songs was necessary, and if a shorter EP would have been the better option. Nonetheless, the new Charli album serves as an appropriate epilogue to a defining era in the artist’s career.
