I was a BRAT before it was cool

Brat.

One word that has gained a whole new meaning to my life. Prior to Charlie XCX’s revolutionary album announcement this summer, this word used to be my middle name.

First introduced to me in primary school when I wasn’t behaving, to hearing it directed towards me at family functions when I’ve said too much, transcending into my adolescence when it had been casually, perhaps playfully tossed around in the bedroom and has eventually morphed into a positive sentiment.

If you catch my drift.

I guess you could say that I was a brat before it was considered cool.

Much like its moniker, the album speaks to me on another celestial level.

Charlie XCX has been around for years and has shared the stage with some of my favorite people; i.e. Taylor Swift, Troye Sivan, and of course Iggy Azalea.

She has done some amazing things to and for the music industry without getting her flowers…and now, by taking the reins of her own artistry and defying what the record labels have to say, she has made her mark coining the summer of 2024 “BRAT summer”. The album is the highest ranking album of the summer and with its swift ending, we were gifted with its sister compilation of remixes dubbed “brat and it’s completely different but also still brat”.

It’s no question that Charlie is a marketing genius; she pays attention to trends, dialog, how to communicate with the new generation, and most importantly how to build a story around a body of work.

Charlie’s previous songs and albums have been phenomenal, but I feel like Brat was the album where she was able to show who she is, how she feels, and built a narrative around it.

The cover was as simplistic as it gets, with an interesting shade of puke-green and a blurred arial font spelling out b-r-a-t. The concept of the cover was met with a lot of criticism and many had doubts that it would even reach an audience. Even though there was no clever intention behind the cover, it sort of unironically lived up to its record’s story.

The blurred font is a nod to how many of us see the world post a night out, coming out of the bat cave also known as the club and the low resolution lime green is intricate, but captivating.

That shade is not normally a color one would wear or see out in public too much, but now, it’s completely being associated with the brat brand and beloved by many.

Soooo…who is this album for? After all, Charlie didn’t anticipate for this to speak to anyone, yet it spoke to nearly everyone in the hyperpop, electronic, house music sphere…acquiring some new members along the way.

This album is a beautiful story that is now being complimented by its remixes because once again, Charlie wanted to give this album a new life. Just because an album has been made, released, played on a loop, and digested to its full extent does not mean that it does not deserve another interpretation. Charlie is able to show us that music is infinite and its versions can be so much more interesting, different, yet still the same by making minimal changes…whether it be lyrically, technically or production wise.

I had the absolute privilege of attending The SWEAT tour with Charlie XCX and Troye Sivan with support of ShyGirl at United Center in Chicago. Charlie’s vision was to transport the audience to a wholehearted house music rave and she absolutely achieved that.

The show was a collaboration between Troye and Charlie, which I loved, because usually there is an artist that opens up the tour and then the “main act” takes over the rest of the show, but in total BRAT fashion, Charlie went against the grain. Their chemistry on stage is impeccable. The flow of the set list was exactly what the doctor ordered with Troye’s sensual pop songs to his equally hot choreography to Charlie’s high energy electro pop enhanced by strobe lights, huge screens, “underground” performances and stage elevations.

The entire setlist is available on Spotify for those of you that either want to relive the show or experience the show at home, but I will say that this tour was not one to miss.

SWEAT tour got everyone up and on their feet, dancing in glitter mesh and ripped tights, sipping on Redbull engulfed by the energy of the strobe lights.

The tour opened up with Troye’s “You Just Got Me Started” off of their “Something to Give Each Other” album. This performance was choreographed so sensually and cleverly; Troye dropped down to his knees to sing directly into the microphone that had been pointed from a higher angle…mimicking an R-rated activity that we all love to do to our significant other on a Friday night…during the bridge of “boy…can I be honest?” and I loved it. I sat petrified with pride. That performance was followed by “What’s The Time Where You Are?” which has become my absolute obsession. That was one of the songs that took my breath away…it’s a dance ballad dedicated to a love interest abroad…sexy, yet captivating enough to shed a tear.

After a brief intermission, the BRAT lime green curtain was lit up from all sides by strobe lights, the 365 remix with ShyGirl was playing the entire time and then the curtain dropped…revealing the one and only queen of our house hearts, Charlie XCX.

She ascended onto the stage alongside ShyGirl and they both started head bangin' along to the remix; the lights were flickering everywhere and the screens kept showing the audience flashing angles of the girls’ dancing. I felt like I had been transported to an underground rave in my early twenties; SouthLoop, Newports in hand, ripped fishnets and chipped nail polish…$2 dollars in my bank account, a vodka tonic in a red solo cup and a questionable dude on my arm. Ahh, memories.

We definitely got Charlie on a great day. She has an alluring stage presence, beautiful transitions from song to song…I especially loved the transition from Troye’s rendition of “Stud” to Charlie’s iconic “Vroom, Vroom”.

Playing “Vroom, Vroom” to a sold out Chicago crowd gave Charlie the recognition she has craved and deserved for such a long time as this track has been highly criticized by many in the past. If you were to ask me, though, I don’t believe that anyone who doesn’t get it should be “bumpin’ that”.

Charlie’s music is the quintessence of what goes on in my head 24/7 and I get pretty defensive when people don’t get it. I know. That sounded really bratty.

Yesterday was the official release of “brat and it’s completely different but also still brat” and I have some thoughts; mainly because this album took me on a highly intense rollercoaster of emotions.

As a long time fan, it’s an interesting dichotomy of work because Brat was released prior to Charlie XCX’s massive catapult to “mainstream” fame and its sister album is almost an interpretation of how Charlie is receptive to that sudden attention. Many have referred to it as a “10 year overnight success”, but in a recent interview with Zane Lowe, Charlie has said herself that “it has been the total opposite of an overnight success”.

This context of these two albums is important because of the fact that because they live in two different realities, their interpretation will be slightly altered.

“Sympathy is a Knife” is originally about rooting for someone who is in hindsight surpassing and succeeding, yet you still root for them for the sake of being a girl’s girl, even though secretly you are a bit envious and feel as though you can’t compete. This song has also been rumored to have been about Taylor Swift, but Charlie has debunked this conspiracy theory herself saying that these aren’t attributed to any specific person in particular.

The remix with Ariana Grande is about the fact that since the catapult to fame and success, everything said in the press, media, or socials is being scrutinized by everyone, their transformation is critiqued and picked apart, their friends are weird and different and therefore “it’s a knife when…you’re finally on top”.

“Everything is romantic” is originally a song about seeing life in color and its appreciation while slightly inebriated.

The remix with Caroline Polachek is almost a melancholic goodbye to that feeling, questioning if anything is romantic anymore? Because it feels off. It feels like that small level of appreciation for every day minuscule things has dispersed.

My personal favorites are “Rewind” featuring Bladee, “So I” featuring ag cook and “I think about it all the time” featuring Bon Iver.

“Rewind” is reminiscent of something I would listen to pretty often in the early 2010s, produced by ag cook and cirkut, in that it’s divinely introspective captivated by swirling synths and distorted vocals. It morphs into “So I” which is meant to change the melancholic, synthy soundscape to that of good times. “Now I wanna think about all the good times…” sending us on a kaleidoscopic journey of Charlie’s core memories, processing grief of her late friend and artist SOPHIE, and how much their presence impacted Charlie’s life as a musician.

All three tracks hold a similar sentiment in holding onto nostalgia, however the remix with Bon Iver solidifies Charlie’s intrinsic worries that since achieving everything she has worked for thus far, she is worried that she is running out of time to have kids, guilt over stopping work because “you’re not supposed to stop working when things start working” and that hit HARD.

This album, along with the journey that it took to get to this point of artistry, has set the bar pretty high. It’s a beautiful compilation of tracks that move the listener to tears, have a moment of introspection, a moment on the dance floor, a moment of grief, a moment of mourning and a moment of realization.

If you haven’t already, please give this album a chance. The remixes are a reimagined work of art and I hope that it graces the stages really, really soon.