Charli XCX‘s Brat multiverse expands again today (Oct. 11) with the release of its remixed edition. Given that Brat is sonically and spiritually a club record, the remixed version is an apt and perhaps predictable compendium. But that’s not to say the project — officially and very Bratily titled Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat — simply just pushes Brat further into the sweaty dancefloors of Ibiza and New York and London and L.A.
Nah. While plenty of Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat remains as danceable, if not sometimes more so, than the original, the remit clearly wasn’t to toss out a bunch of tech house edits and call it a day, but to genuinely rework each track on all levels. The project is as much about offering new sounds and arrangements as it is about expanding and deepening the themes of each song through new lyrics from Charli and her collection of collaborators.
In that sense, Charli’s mournful Sophie tribute “So I” transforms into a vastly more celebratory but still deeply nostalgic recollection of the good times the pair shared together. In its more meta moments, the remixes consider how Charli’s life has changed following the success of Brat, with the edits on “Von Dutch,” “Rewind” and others including lyrics about fans who say they like you but then seem to hate you, uncomfortable experiences with journalists and suddenly having a lot more money and a lot more to cross off the to-do list. And while the nonstop element was based around relentless partying, here it’s more about going from the show to the photo shoot to the plane to the hotel room in perpetuity because Charli’s career is going so well.
As on Brat, the artist’s honesty and lyrical specificity are one of the most interesting parts of the project, offering windows into her existence (hungover in a Tokyo hotel room, watching a woman on a Lime scooter vomit in London) and the wild swirl it’s become during Brat summer.
Unsurprisingly, following the album’s creative and commercial triumph, a lot of big names are involved in the remixes (with there presumably also somewhere existing a list of artists who would’ve liked to be on it but didn’t get the invite). The assembled crew includes people in Charli’s immediate orbit — The 1975‘s Matty Healy, who’s the bandmate of Charli’s fiancé George Daniel, the 1975 collaborator The Japanese House, Charli’s current tour mates Troye Sivan and Shygirl — along with further afield collaborators who were arguably lured not by the freewheeling creative opportunities of the project (see the stunning contribution by Midwestern polymath Bon Iver), but also by the chance to step into Charli’s level of honesty.
To that end, Ariana Grande’s appearance on “Sympathy Is a Knife” finds her telling it like it is (for her) with a forthrightness that’s refreshing and genuinely interesting. That same invite was, of course, previously extended to and accepted by Lorde, who, by working it out on the remix, helped show the potential for this project — potential it achieves with a success that’s by now predictable for anything Brat related, but which here also feels totally fresh and often even revelatory.
Here’s a ranked of the 16 remixes on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat.
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