Hi, everyone. Bratthony Greentano here, the internet's busiest music nerd and it's time for a review of this new record, Brat, from Charli XCX.

Here we have the sixth official full-length studio album from pop singer and songwriter, Miss Charli XCX. One of my most anticipated albums of the year.

Why? Well, over the past decade, in my eyes, Charli has grown into one of the most creative, unique, and pioneering forces in current day pop music, and her evolution has been interesting to watch, to say the least. I'm not a fan of her early work, truth be told, but today it serves as an interesting reference point for what she's doing on this record. The true romance and sucker eras of her career did bring some of her biggest hits and features to date, that is true. But sonically, much of the music she was dropping around this time wasn't very daring or even deep. At best, you could say it was catchy and of the time.

Around the mid-2010s, though, is when Charli's music really began to push boundaries, crossing over creatively with writers and producers from the up and coming PC music label. I'm talking people like Danny L Harle and Eazyfun, A.G. Cook and the late Sophie, who at the time were gaining quite the reputation for revitalizing a lot of Y2K era pop esthetics, but with a hyper-futuristic, jittery sound.

Our first taste of this new direction came in the form of Charli XCX's Vroom Vroom EP in 2016, which some critics just did not know what to make of at the time. And while it was my ERP of the year that year, I could still see how this would have turned a lot of people off if they came into Charli's music having certain expectations given that she was a pop artist. Because Vroom Vroom in tone is at points dark and visceral and groovy in a weird way. Campy, too, with some tracks varying so wildly from part to part that you could almost take what she was doing here as a joke or a novelty.

However, the tracks on this EP are deadly serious and were also a new, bold step for pop music, as well as an 'aha' moment for both Charli and PC music creatively. Because at this point, I think Charli became the perfect conduit for what they were trying to channel this detailed and retro-futuristic reconstruction of 2000s pop music that blur the lines between satirical but also reverent.

Meanwhile, Charli's creative chemistry with A.G. and Sophie allowed her, I think, to experiment more and mature as a songwriter, allowing her the freedom to drop zany bangers as well as slick, powerful anthems, songs with strange structures or very unlikely features. A lot of these ideas and concepts were more or less road-tested on the mixtape she dropped back in 2017. And then, in my eyes, it was all fully realized on her her excellent 2019 Charli record.

Now, over the years, as Charli has developed this new sound, her writing has offered more depth, has become more personal and intimate, especially on her pandemic album, How I'm Feeling Now. But I think Charli's writing has grown more conceptual, too. With her presentation as this posh English party girl on many of her songs has more or less become like this exaggerated character she plays into.

However, in a way, Charli's instantly recognizable sound and unique place in the pop landscape became both a blessing and a curse at the dawn of the 2020s because her style had gone from challenging to definable with this newly minted "hyper-pop" term that was being thrown onto everybody who sounded even vaguely like her or 100 Gecs.

She quickly went on to strip away many of the hyper characteristics of her music on her next album, Crash, working with a totally new team of producers. And while I can't deny the record does feature some respectable hits, I have to ask at what cost, because Crash did very measurably have quite a bit less character than anything Charli had dropped in recent years at the time.

Which brings us to today, Charli's latest album cycle here, Brat, where I think she's genuinely reconnecting with the trajectory that has brought her to this point and made her a special artist to begin with. Even Easyfun and A.G. Cook are back in the mix on the production side on a whole lot of tracks, numerous others too. There are even references to A.G. Cook on some of the lyrics to this record as quite a bit of meta-commentary is going on as well.

You can really tell that Charli is fully embracing the impact she's had on pop music in recent years and really using it as more of a strength than a weakness that she can be pigeonholed into. I think that's something she can do confidently because her and A.G. Cook aren't just merely trying to revive some hyperpop trend on this LP.

I mean, for sure, Charli's goal and focus is to give us this autotuned, bold, and hard-hitting homage to 2000s-era pop music. But this time around, we have a refreshing focus on dance-pop, on EDM from that era, on electropop from that era, club bangers generally, with a pretty aggressive edge, making this LP very worthy of the title Brat, because this record is meant to be danced to and at points, cried to, as I think Charli's writing is more mature and thoughtful than it's ever been.

For one, her party girl persona takes a bit of a dark turn or at least gets deflated a bit as she reveals that it's a mask and that she doesn't always feel like she's worthy of being there at the party or that her and the party are a bit at odds. Meanwhile, "I Think About It All The Time," sees Charli musing about whether or not she can continue her career in the way she currently is while also becoming a mother, which she very clearly has interest in at some point. Skipping ahead here, it's also crazy how narratively this contrast so hard with her going back full into party mode on the closing track, "365."

Of course, there are notes of nostalgia on this album, too, that is very much in line with tracks like "1999," most notably on "Rewind." But this song, specifically, is more about Charli, Charli missing older aspects of her life before the Fame. Between sticky choruses on this track, she delivers her verses in this way that comes off like a conflicted internal monologue or like she's musically journaling.

There are lots of tracks on this thing, too, that deal in love. But these songs narratively feel vastly different from previous singles like "Good Ones," for example. Tracks where, historically, Charli can be seen running away from love or being a bit self-effacing and talking about how she's fucking it all up.

Instead, on on songs such as the really infectious "Talk, Talk," as well as the very cinematic "Everything Is Romantic," Charli can be seen accepting love and doing quite a few shoutouts to her fiancée, George. But between this and numerous nods to wanting to have maybe a more normal life at some point, Charli really presents some interesting internal conflicts throughout this album, which we also hear as well on tracks where she is singing about things like friendship and sharing the limelight with other women.

Historically, Charli is a very pro-woman, especially when it comes to supporting other artists with her music through features, through attention she can throw their way with her creativity. I mean, even look at the lyrics in the music video to one of the big singles from this record, "360." That is the Charli that most fans know and love.

By that same token, there are numerous songs on this record where she is being very unfiltered in just admitting how just insecure and plagued with fear she is sometimes. There's "Sympathy is a Knife," where she talks about just being so self-conscious around this other woman that she wishes for a gun to shoot herself with, which is context that some fans might even miss if they're mostly wrapped up in the roaring bass and fantastic string hits going on on the dance beat.

There's also "Girl, So Confusing," where Charli sings about the difficulties of letting people in and navigating the music industry, among other people who she may have a difficult time connecting with, knowing how to trust. The song seems to be very specifically about a single person who maybe she's been likened to by fans, but she doesn't fully see it. However, there's still a desire there on some level to make the friendship or the connection work.

Then the song "Von Dutch" sees Charli getting pretty aggressive and combative lyrically, specifically in regards to someone who doesn't seem to like her, maybe even is talking behind her back. And her response to that is essentially this big anthemic, 'fuck you' here, where she's delivering some biting lyrics about how this person may actually be nothing if it weren't for some little dance they're doing.

There are these intense emotional peaks all over the album, but the biggest bombshell of all of them has to be the song "So I," which is very obviously a tribute to the late great producer and songwriter Sophie, who actually collaborated with Charli quite a few times. So consistently, in fact, from an outside perspective, I don't think any fan of either Charli or Sophie would have presumed anything of them and their connection other than something along the lines of, 'Hey, they're collaborators, they have big respect for each other, they love each other, they're probably friends. Charli, Sophie, Sophie, Charli, name a more iconic duo.'

But what Charli says on this track here actually tells a very different story and is quite revealing in a way that is actually pretty admirable because the angle of the song is, yes, very sad, obviously, but it doesn't necessarily paint Charli in the best light. And again, It's painfully sad and has made me reflect on the tone that tributes in art or whatever other medium often take. They usually end up being less about the tributed person and more about the tributor's love of an adoration. 'Look how great I think this person is who we all think is great.'

Charli's song here does contain quite a bit of praise for Sophie. That's true, don't get me wrong. But a lot of the track is actually an admittance on Charli's part with her pretty much saying, 'I was a shitty friend. I kinda pushed this person away. I wish I didn't. And now I am plagued with an insurmountable amount of regret,' which does make it a really tough listen, even if I think instrumentally and melodically, it is one of the strongest showings here.

Narratively and emotionally, there are quite a few cuts that I think are a bit lighter in tone, but they still contribute a great amount of quality to the record and are just generally fun and entertaining to listen to. There's "Club Classics," which I thought was an incredible single to the album. Also, "B2B," which is just some very straightforward, cut and dry, throwback quality dance-pop with a pretty clear, hot and cold, back and forth love on the rocks type narrative.

There's also "Apple," which is some very groovy throwback synth-pop, too. All about a situation and a dynamic that Charli likens to a rotten apple. It's a situation she describes having to escape from by car, by plane. There's "Mean Girls," which is a character portrait about exactly that with a soaring and anthemic chorus, plus a killer piano break that the entire track builds off of from there. Then at the very end, there's "365," which is this version of the song, "360," that kicks the record off this mirrored remix as reprise big finish with some acid bass mixed in there for good measure.

I love the way the record finishes, love the way it kicks off, and the flow from moment to moment, generally, is great. It's to the point where certain tracks in the lead up to the record that I thought were just okay sound better being reinforced by the vibes and esthetics of the surrounding songs on the album. Because as I've heard the entire thing now many times over. I don't think there's a skip on it.

The production generally goes hard as hell. It is vibrant, it is colorful, it is very visceral, at times, aggressive. But I could see some people scratching their heads at the fact that it doesn't come across quite as futuristic as some of those hyperpop classics in recent years.

But more importantly, what I think the production does on this album is that it serves the songs. It's sweet when it needs to be, it's dynamic when it needs to be, low-key or explosive when it needs to be. There's still a very clear and consistent esthetic focus on the entire album that centers around a certain air of pop and dance music.

I'm not necessarily disappointed with this record not being as ahead of the curve as a project like Charli, for example, especially considering that Charli XCX copycats these days are abound. The impact that people like her and A.G. and Sophie have had on the modern era of pop music is not going anywhere anytime soon.

And it's with that I say I love Brat, killer album. And I think that this record proves that Charli truly is a generational pop artist, which is why I'm feeling a strong 9 to a 10 on this LP.

Have you given this album a listen? Did you love it? Did you hate it? What would you rate it? What should I review next? Leave a comment down below and hit that Join button at the top of the site to subscribe.

Anthony Fantano. Charli XCX. Forever.