1, 2, 3 AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
Hi everyone, BRATthony Greeentano 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 6th official full-length studio album from pop-singer and
songwriter Ms 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.
Uh, for what she is doing on this record.
The "True Romance" and "Sucker" eras of her career, uh, 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 EASYFUN, A.G Cook,
and the late SOPHIE,
who at the time were gaining quite the reputation for
revitalizing a lot of Y2k-era pop aesthetics but with a
hyper-futuristic, jittery sound.
And 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 EP 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, kind of dark, and visceral
and groovy in a weird way.
Campy, too, with some tracks varying so wildly from part to part that,
uh, you could almost take what she was doing here as, like, a joke or novelty.
However, the tracks on this EP are deadly serious.
And were also a new, bold step for pop music as well as in a hot 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 the 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
sleek-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 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 this exaggerated character she plays into.
However, in a way, Charli's instantly recognizable sound and unique place
in the pop landscape, uh, became both a blessing and a curse at the dawn of the 2020s.
Because her style had gone from challenging to kind of definable
with this newly-minted "hyperpop" term that was being thrown onto everybody
who sounded even vaguely like her or 100gecs.
And 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 that 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 this production side,
on a whole lot of tracks, uh, 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 pigeon holed into.
And I think that's something she can do confidently because
her and A.G Cook