“Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat” is postmodernist pop

By Arman Saxena     11/12/24 10:15pm

Score: ★★★★

Key track: “Girl, so confusing” with Lorde

Hear me out, “Brat and it’s completely different but it's still brat” is postmodernist pop. 

---

---

Charli XCX has shown herself a fan of playing with her audience and her image. With the two biggest post-Brat remixes she dropped, “Girl, so confusing” with Lorde and “Guess” with Billie Eilish, Charli is winking at her audience, and she continues to do that throughout her newest project. 

“Brat and it’s completely different but it's still brat” is a perfect description of the album. This is a collection of diverse reimaginings of the now-iconic tracks from 2024’s album of the summer. There are some duds, but most of these experiments work, still holding on to the playful, hedonistic aesthetic that made “Brat” brat. 

The album follows the same order as the original BRAT project, starting with the already-released “360” remix featuring Swedish icons Robyn and Yung Lean. Both effortlessly float over the beat, adding fun, addictive sections to an already catchy track and amping up its concert-ready energy.

“Club Classics,” featuring Spanish rapper bb trickz, stands out as an infectious hit, fusing European club beats with playful, club-ready lyrics that give the track an edge. But it’s “Sympathy is a Knife” that takes postmodern pop into a deeper, darker realm. This remix leans into existentialism, questioning the blurred lines between fame and authenticity — a theme that seems to resonate throughout the entire project. 

The original was already a self-aware and anxious track about Charli’s relationship with the media and her image but the remix adds a similarly existential verse from Ariana Grande with lyrics like “It’s a knife when they dissect your body on the front page / It’s a knife when they don’t believe you, why should you explain.” While it doesn’t measure up to the original, this remix cements this song as an affecting commentary on the sexism prevalent in the media’s treatment of female artists.

However, not all tracks hit the mark. The “I might say something stupid” remix falls flat, struggling to find its footing as it pushes too far into experimentation, losing some of the charm of the original. But the “Everything is romantic” remix with Caroline Polachek is fantastic, turning up the energy on the album and providing one of its strongest highlights. 

Then there’s the “Girl, so confusing” remix. Here, Charli and Lorde seem to directly respond to the internet’s constant speculation about their relationship. Are they rivals, or are they best friends? And while the song is playful, it is also deeply honest about the way media image affects artists’ perceptions of their peers and themselves. 

On the track, Charli mentions how her meetings with Lorde are sometimes awkward or uncomfortable, and Lorde’s explanation is rife with vulnerability. The New Zealander sings about her struggles with her body and  image, and how these insecurities led her to be intimidated by Charli. By the end of the track, however, she comes to terms with being friends with someone she idolizes saying “And it’s just self defense / Until you’re building a weapon / She believes my projection / And now I totally get it / Forgot that inside the icon / there’s still a young girl from Essex”. Through segments like these, the remix toys with questions of perception and reality. 

The postmodernism comes into play as both artists give tongue-in-cheek references to their media perception, with Charli XCX singing, “People say we’re alike / They say we’ve got the same hair / it’s you and me on the coin / the industry loves to spend / and when we put this to bed / the internet will go crazy / I’m glad I know how you feel”, followed by Lorde’s supportive echo, “‘Cause, I ride for you Charli.” This introspective, anthemic track is a wink to their audience, a perfect blend of electro-pop introspection and sly humor that gives a meta-commentary on fame, friendship and online narratives. 

“Brat and it’s completely different but it's still brat” is an apt title. It’s a remix album that celebrates Charli XCX’s boundless creativity, throwing a kaleidoscope of influences into the mix without losing the core of what made “Brat” so iconic. 

While a few tracks miss the mark, the majority of these reimaginings work, expanding on the original's high-energy aesthetic with new layers of introspection and self-awareness. Charli’s persona shines through, but there’s a vulnerability here too — a knowing wink that makes this postmodern pop project not just a fun remix album but a statement on the fluid nature of identity in the digital age.

---