Released: 2024
Genres: Electropop, Electronic Dance Music, Dance Pop
The Musiquarium’s BRAT Review Score: 10 out of 10
BRAT was simply the biggest album of summer 2024 and it’s easy to see why — from the vibrant production, to the simplistic graphic design and marketing, to the mix of boastful and vulnerable lyrics, as well as the overall confidence exuded from Charli, BRAT was destined to flourish, turning Charli xcx from a critical darling to the pop star to beat.
360 and 365 bookend the album, incorporating similar musical and lyrical motifs, giving the album a conceptual feel, but without them seeing derivative of each other either. Von dutch was the first single off the album, and shows Charli at her most playful and confident. The synths in Sympathy is a knife could cut through metal like a plasma cutter. Mean girls has a terrifically tasteful piano lick.
The production in Club classics is like a rollercoaster, only better. Rewind and I might say something stupid show Charli’s introspective and vulnerable side, something most pop artists don’t seem to be capable of. Girl, so confusing is a self-aware banger about how confusing women are, even from the perspective of another woman. The experimental Everything is romantic is one of Charli’s best songs yet and finds a new use for the same sample found in ¥$’s VULTURES, which released several months prior.
Where 15 tracks would be too many on most albums, BRAT is so good that the album breezes by you, making you want to re-listen to it again and again. BRAT is Charli xcx’s magnum opus and one of the best pop albums of the millennium — it’s deserving of all the praise and attention it has gotten and while I think that she already had a perfect album (how i’m feeling now), this is by far her most definitive one.
Trivia: BRAT won Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards.
For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view Charli xcx on Discogs.
Back to the 2024 Album Reviews Guide or the Charli xcx Reviews page.
Written by Brett Nippard
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