Before she became one of the world’s biggest cult pop stars, a collaborator with Troye Sivan and Christine and the Queens and a touring partner with Taylor Swift, Charli XCX was a nerdy kid from the Essex sticks obsessed with rave culture. On her sixth album, Brat, the artist born Charlotte Aitchison rewinds to those formative years on the dancefloor with an emotion-soaked collection of maximalist bangers. It’s a full-on listen – even by Charli’s more-is-more-standards – but is also hugely heartfelt, featuring some her most searingly confessional lyrics yet.
Charli XCX isn’t a pop star for everyone. She has been connected throughout her career with the critically acclaimed but also slightly annoying label PC Music and the associated “hyperpop” scene, which at its worst can sound like novelty music for hipsters. Depending on your mood, her relentless concoctions can be thrilling or exhausting.
Hyperpop’s mix of pedal-to-the-floor tempos and sped-up melodies remains a calling card on Brat (which features production from PC Music founder AG Cook). But she also lets her guard down as never before: amid the sugar-rush grooves, the record radiates anxiety, poignancy and regret.
This isn’t exactly a departure – 2022’s Crash brimmed with break-up songs in which, confronted by an unspooling romance, Charli couldn’t decide if she was the hero or the villain. Two years later, however, she takes the soul-baring to new heights.
Aitchison eases us in gently with opener “360” – a hands-in-the-air bopper inspired by her teenage experience of the London club circuit. But from there, the tone turns increasingly melancholic. Hemmed in by wonky beats, “Sympathy Is a Knife” finds the naturally introverted singer wondering if stardom is worth the hassle (“I don’t wanna share the space/I don’t wanna force a smile”). She holds her messiest feelings up to the light all over again on “So I” – a glittering tribute to the hyperpop artist Sophie, who died in 2021, where Charli wonders why she didn’t work harder at their friendship (“Why did I push you away?).
Brat returns to the theme of personal awkwardness on “Girl, So Confusing”, which recollects bashful coffee meet-ups with another female pop star and comes off like a mix of Dua Lipa and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Most striking of all is the bittersweet “I Think About It All the Time”, where she reflects on the tension between her professional ambitions and her desire to become a mother.
Clocking in at a trim 41 minutes, Brat goes full circle on closing track “365”, another rave blitz which comes back to the idea of the dancefloor as the ultimate refuge. It’s a shimmering conclusion to Charli XCX’s most heartfelt record to date – a delightful cybernetic onslaught speckled with self-doubt and vulnerability.
Stream: “Sympathy Is a Knife”, “Girl, So Confusing”