Hi, everyone! Welcome back to another individual album review! Today I’m reviewing what is arguably the most critically acclaimed album of 2024 thus far, the newest album from Charli xcx, BRAT. Also, at the end of this review I’m going to give another quick update on what’s going to be happening on this website in the near future. I already gave an update recently, but there’s more I want to say because my plans have changed a bit.

Anyway, before we get into that … well, I can’t say I’ve ever been a huge Charli xcx fan up to this point. Maybe I haven’t listened to her music enough, but I have listened to all of her albums at least a few times each, and … well, out of her first five albums, I honestly think three of them are legitimately bad, those being her first two as well as her fifth album CRASH, which was a dishonourable mention on my worst albums of 2022, and I stand by that. All three of them, in my opinion, are very basic pop albums with production that I don’t like and barely anything that pulls me to go back to them at all. And maybe I’m missing something, but whether I’m just too harsh a critic or the albums just aren’t good, either way they’re definitely not for me.

But even her super critically acclaimed albums in the past haven’t fully clicked for me. Both 2019’s Charli and 2020’s how i’m feeling now are both good albums, with the former being my personal favourite … but I wouldn’t call either of them great as full albums, even though Charli definitely has its moments.

But I can’t deny my expectations were actually pretty high for this new album, even though I didn’t like CRASH at all. Because this is not only by far Charli’s most critically acclaimed album to date (which is saying a lot considering how much critics have praised those two albums I mentioned earlier), but it’s probably the most critically acclaimed album of 2024 thus far, and it’s probably going to be on pretty much every ‘best albums of 2024’ list, and it’ll probably be a very popular pick for the #1 spot.

I mean, I can’t deny there was a part of me that said, ‘Simon, you’ve heard all the praise for her albums in the past, and they haven’t clicked for you. This is probably going to end up falling flat.’ But the more I thought about it, something felt different this time, and I was really, really excited to hear this!

So, after probably about a dozen listens, where do I fall on this album? Does it live up to the hype like I was really hoping it would?

Well, it is arguably my favourite album of hers to date … and that means it’s on a similar level for me as Charli, another album which I’ve never really loved as a whole. And it’s a frustrating album, not in that it’s bad—I absolutely don’t think this is bad at all—just that it feels like it should be so much better! There are elements of this that I really like, and I absolutely think it has some highlights in the track list … but as a whole it just doesn’t fully click.

So, I may as well begin by talking about the opening track “360” which is a pretty good track but not one that I feel all that drawn to return to. It’s got a nice trap snare and the synths that continue throughout the song have a nice bounce to them, but I don’t find Charli’s delivery all that captivating. I guess it kind of works as an intro to the album, with Charli showing a lot of personality and confidence, although I don’t think it’s really the best representation of the album as a whole, a lot of which is a lot more thought-provoking.

Although if you want the definition of a pure banger designed for the dancefloor, then track 2, “Club classics”, fits the bill. I mean, it’s literally a song about dancing at the club to the ‘club classics,’ listing a bunch of artists she wants to listen to at the club, even saying she wants to dance to her own music at the club … and I think this song would probably go pretty hard in that setting, even though I wish it had a little more to it structurally.

The first truly great song here in my opinion is the next song, “Sympathy is a knife”, which is a contender for the song on the album with the best chorus. And it’s kind of hard to untangle lyrically, but to me it seems like the ‘sympathy’ might be the sympathy that others feel for Charli, hence why she mentions needing the sympathy but feeling embarrassed about it, because her insecurities are affecting others, not just herself, and while sometimes you feel like the best thing to do is just hide it, you eventually hit a point where you can’t do that anymore, and it can feel like a sigh of relief. And I think the chorus really encapsulates that feeling with the sudden hits of bass and what sounds like some subtle strings which really help this hook soar!

“I might say something stupid” seems to be at least partially about Charli feeling like she doesn’t really fit in with the mainstream pop crowd or the underground indie crowd, and worrying about what others think of her. And I think the autotune fits quite well with the feeling like you’re walking on eggshells.

But the next track, “Talk talk”, is mostly a dud for me (although it does remind me I want to listen to more music by the band of the same name). The chorus is very underwhelming and the watery production feels a little off-putting.

“Von dutch” was released back in February as the lead single for the album, and this song is an absolute banger! It has one of the best choruses on the album, and the synths build so much tension! And that post-chorus is incredibly catchy as well!

“Everything is romantic” is probably one of the most difficult songs to untangle here, and while I’m not going to try too hard to analyze this in this review, it kind of feels like it somehow represents the passing of time and how quickly it goes by, and it’s not even as much the lyrics that give it that sense as it is the way it sounds, especially that haunting outro. Whatever this song is about, though, it’s a haunting listen which really brings up a lot of questions, and it’s the sort of weird, cryptic song that really works for me!

“Rewind” is a pretty good song, but definitely not among my favourites here. I like the idea of the song about wanting to go back in time, although the lyrics don’t really feel all that interesting, and while it’s well produced and the chorus is pretty catchy, there’s just not much about it that makes me want to return to it.

But then there’s the most heartbreaking song on the album, “So I”, which was written about the legendary music producer SOPHIE who tragically passed away suddenly in 2021, and who was friends with Charli. And she realizes that she never fully appreciated SOPHIE as much as she does now, and it’s too late to show her that. It’s not a super deep or complicated song … and it doesn’t have to be. It’s just pure emotion, and that vocal effect at the end really gets to me every time. It’s a fantastic song, and there’s a very good argument to be made that this is the best song on the entire album.

And I also quite like the next track, “Girl, so confusing”, although it’s not fully clicking for me. And maybe it’s my gender getting in the way of fully connecting with this song, because I think it does what it’s trying to do really well, showing how she can sometimes struggle to get along with women in a society which always talks about ‘women supporting each other.’ And the frustration of trying to live up to that but realizing that you’re not going to get along with everyone really shines through with that really catchy chorus.

“Apple” is another one of those songs that I think is good but feels like something’s missing. I don’t know, maybe it’s just that I find the ‘apple’ metaphor a little bit cheesy with just how much it’s used here, although I very well may be missing something that makes it all make sense. I mean, I like the bouncy groove and the vocal effects, but maybe it could have used a really huge chorus to help this fully click.

“B2b” doesn’t really have a lot to it, but it’s a perfect jam to dance to. If I want a song from this album that feels built for the dancefloor, my go-to would be this over “Club classics” any day! That progression of the bass complements the vocal melody super well, and the mixing is fantastic! It’s a great song and easily one of the catchiest songs here!

And then unfortunately we have my least favourite song on the album, “Mean girls”, which I think is the only bad song here. And the thing is, this could have worked. This sort of ‘bad girl anthem’ can be done really well, and if there’s an artist to pull it off it’s probably Charli xcx, but the vocals feel kind of lifeless which doesn’t match at all with the upbeat, EDM instrumental. Also, maybe this is just me, but I can’t help but be reminded of “Sexy Bitch” by David Guetta ft. Akon with that synth in the chorus, and that is not a compliment at all. I do think this song is probably better than “Sexy Bitch”, but the fact that it’s only ‘probably’ better than that song is a bad sign.

“I think about it all the time” seems to be a fan favourite on the album, and … well, I can see why. I really like the lyrics where she starts thinking about whether or not she wants to have kids, and she knows a part of her absolutely does but she knows it’s a really huge decision. But with that being said, I don’t really find much about this sonically that stands out to me.

Finally the album ends with “365”, a catchy enough song that also just doesn’t really stand out to me. It’s kind of a part two to the opening track, and while I don’t dislike this track it just feels kind of generic.

But yeah, those are my thoughts on BRAT. Again, there are moments that I really like, but as a whole album I can’t say I fully loved it. I definitely don’t think it lives up to the hype.

But as always, this is all just how I personally feel about it. Feel free to let me know in the comments what you thought of this album and/or what you thought of my review.

Before I end this post, I just want to give a quick update about the near future of my reviews. So, like I mentioned recently, I’ve ended up taking a little bit of a break from my reviews, and I was going to try to get ‘back on schedule’ (whatever that even means—I never followed a strict schedule with my reviews anyway), where I would eventually get back to reviewing about one album per day, even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to get a review per day done for the whole year because I missed a bunch of days.

Well, at this point I’ve realized that at least for this year, I think it will make the most sense to just cut down on the amount of albums that I review. But I still want to find enough great albums to make a top 50 list at the end of the year, so that means that instead of trying to review pretty much every album I listen to, I’m only going to review a percentage of the albums that I listen to. What percentage? I don’t know. But I think I’m mostly going to review either albums that I think are great, or really good, or that I think will be really easy to review, or that I think will create interesting reviews, etc.

We’ll see how this goes, and again, I might be switching to making video reviews, possibly as early as sometime this year. I don’t have a permanent strategy for how to approach my reviews, but I’m going to try this for now. So, the reviews might not be super frequent for the rest of this year, just thought I’d let you all know.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

Final Thoughts
Rating: 7/10
Favourite Tracks: “Sympathy is a knife”, “Von dutch”, “Everything is romantic”, “So I”, “B2b”
Least Favourite Track: “Mean girls”