About this item

All formats come with a free Piccadilly Records EOY Sampler CD whilst stocks last.

‘BRAT’ is the eagerly awaited follow up to 2022’s ‘CRASH’, which reached number 1 on the UK’s official album chart, and promises to be an exhilarating club record built around high art references and social commentary.

Avant-pop and electronic superstar Charli XCX has become an iconic figure in the arts, having helped expand the landscape of popular music over the last decade by seamlessly traversing the underground and mainstream with her artistic output. Over the course of a trailblazing career, the multi-hyphenate creative has earned critical acclaim for her innovative style and entrepreneurial spirit and seen her forward-thinking approach reshape pop culture in the process.

Her lasting impact was cemented last year when Charli was honoured with the Visionary Award at the annual Ivor Novellos in London, while she also received the Powerhouse Award at Billboard’s Women In Music ceremony in Los Angeles in March.

STAFF COMMENTS

Ethan says: Is it possible to talk about music in 2024 without mentioning Charli xcx’s Brat? Backed by a masterclass in marketing, a hall-of-fame list of producers, and followed by remixes featuring pop music’s biggest stars, Brat is undeniably one of the most successful pop eras of the modern age.

Throughout this album, Charli embraces a far more electronic direction. DJ culture is felt throughout, with the coke-fuelled closer “365” remixing opener “360”, whilst a series of PARTYGIRL-branded back-to-back sets launched the album. Producers like George Daniel, A. G. Cook and EASYFUN give this record its token EDM feel that helped it thrive in a pop landscape of short audience attention spans.
It also helps that almost any song here could’ve been the lead single, proven by the amount of ‘sleeper hits’ the album has produced. Think of “Apple” and Kelley Heyer’s unforgettable dance (which I’m sure you’ll find Millie recreating every so often), or Liam’s personal favourite “Talk talk”, with its pounding four-to-the-floor kick and glossy synths.

Despite Brat’s “365 party girl” mentality, Charli displays a vulnerability missing from earlier works, through the emotionally messy tribute to SOPHIE on “So, I”, or the Kero Kero Bonito-esque “I think about it all the time” in which the artist sings about the dichotomy between her bratty persona and a desire to settle down. That’s all without mentioning the biggest pop moment of the year in “Girl, so confusing”, where Charli sings about her uneasy relationship with popstar Lorde before they “worked it out on the remix” two weeks later.

No album better defines 2024 than Charli xcx’s Brat, and I’m sure years down the line we’ll still be referring to this summer as “Brat summer.”

TRACK LISTING

1. 360
2. Club Classics
3. Sympathy Is A Knife
4. I Might Say Something Stupid
5. Talk Talk
6. Von Dutch
7. Everything Is Romantic
8. Rewind
9. So I
10. Girl, So Confusing
11. Apple
12. B2b
13. Mean Girls
14. I Think About It All The Time
15. 365