review
GORDISTOTLE WEIGHS IN ON IF IT’S ACTUALLY A BRAT SUMMER AFTER ALL
This article is part of The G Spot, a weekly segment where criticista Gordistotle gives insight into the pop culture happenings of now through opinions or anecdotes on his life living in Toronto.
I’m going to say something a little controversial, ‘Brat’ is fine. I love the singles and I think this was only the natural progression for Charli’s career as she re-broke into the mainstream. My dilemma is that it’s not the sound of hers I originally fell in love with when I discovered there was more to Charlotte than an Iggy collab or a feature on the soundtrack for that cancer movie (you know the one).
Which is fine, unfortunately not everything Charli does is tailored to me.
Charli has been a staple in internet pop culture for the last decade, if for some reason you don’t have a resident gay in your life (or are a gay yourself without internet access) the last you heard of her was probably the 2014 radio stints.
If that’s the case, I doubt anything from this point in the article going forward will make any sense to you. If you’re at the club and need an easy way to spark a conversation with an alternative-looking gay guy, ask him what he thinks of “Taxi”.
Don’t listen to his answer because, who cares, just say “Bounce” is better. Don’t worry you don’t even have to know the songs you're referring to. If you really want kudos, say you loved the Kyary Pamyu Pamyu feature. Just got you at least 15 minutes of conversation, you’re welcome!
The biggest stand-outs to me on ‘Brat’ had already been released, “360” and “Club classics”. These tracks radiate pure unfiltered fun and were electric to hear live at Primavera Sound in Barcelona (yes I’m bragging ahhhh you mad). Funnily enough, my other favourite, the Brazilian funk track, if that’s what they’re calling it I guess, “Everything is romantic” debuted at Primavera Sound prior to the album's release. The song oddly reminds me of Raye’s writing style, which Charli isn’t unfamiliar with working with. Side note, “Dreamer” from ‘Number 1 Angel’ clears everything on ‘Brat’, just saying.
Aside from “Von dutch” and “Talk talk”, the rest of the album falls a little flat for me, the production didn’t immediately draw me in like Charli’s previous work. Her lyricism has always been cheeky but this time it was a little too quirky and on the nose for me? I was expecting 15 short and sweet club classics, but a lot of the tracks reminded me of either Hannah Diamond or a coming-of-age teen movie.
‘Brat’ to me reeks of new toy syndrome, it’s reductive of her past work, most notably her ‘Number 1 Angel’ and ‘Pop2’ mixtapes. Charli effortlessly captured the club sound on tracks like “Girls Night Out” and “3AM” more than she did on ‘Brat’, where she’s actively trying to. My main issue with ‘Brat’, is that it insists upon itself, it’s being propelled more so by the media spectacle of it all than the actual art. You can argue that the real art of ‘Brat’ has been the genius marketing tactics as opposed to the album’s tracks. Which worked almost too well. Every Instagram story I’ve tapped through has been related to Charli as she’s been ruling Twitter discourse with an iron fist since the “360” video dropped.
In Charli’s defense, I get easily annoyed by internet discourse. I discovered and made my own experiences with her mixtapes and scrapped third album in isolation. With ‘Brat’ I’m subjected to the online discourse on top of my own opinion. Thankfully I was able to listen to the leak and enjoyed my first listen without it being jaded by Twitter. Again, on the initial listen I thought the album was just fine, knowing what Charli’s truly capable of, I was disappointed as a fan. The lyrics are formulaic and not as complex as her past work, it seems that she’s watered herself down to appeal to the audience she could never fully capture.
My perception of ‘Brat’’s marketing and its subsequent discourse on social media has felt like the antithesis to the album’s “I’m the nichest person alive” concept. However in the digital age, everyone is the nichest person alive, so why not make slightly annoying music for people who are more than slightly annoying?
The deluxe edition of ‘Brat’, ‘brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not’ has been a saving grace for me. I absolutely loved the deluxe tracks. “Hello goodbye” was an immediate stand-out with lush production, a sense of self, and creative lyricism. Where was this sound for the second half of ‘Brat’!? “Guess” is the perfect tongue and cheek for anyone who’s been following Charli for a while.
“Wanna guess the password to my Google Drive” made me audibly laugh. I’d say this track was… a TKO for me (lol). “Spring breakers” can finally retire from your Spotify Local Files. The heavily teased track gets the official release treatment leaving the likes of fan favourites’ “Taxi” and “Bounce”. I see “Spring breakers” soundtracking many a house party for years to come. Tracks where Charli gets to let her hair down and have fun are where she truly excels. A lot of ‘Brat’ comes off as too calculated and self-involved, “Spring breakers” takes me back to the days of “After The Afterparty” where we loved the music without making it our identity!
“Spring breakers” follows Atlantic’s latest marketing tactics with Charli, leaning into the elusiveness of her teased, but never released, tracks. “Spring breakers” was first heard in an Instagram live over a year ago. The song was slated for release on the original album but was withheld, leading to speculation if it would ever be released. To keep her core fans’ attention, she continuously teased the track at DJ sets. The song fluttered into the territory of unreleased favourites like the aforementioned “Bounce” and “Taxi”. Ultimately building up anticipation for the possibility of it being on the deluxe version of the album, which it was. Charli’s currently in the process of doing the same tactic with ‘Brat’s’ remix album, which has been teased on multiple occasions.
My critiques of Charli truly do come from a place of love and admiration. While Charli’s earlier tracks hold a nostalgic sweet spot in my heart, ‘Brat’ unfortunately does not have that grace, yet. I’m sure that one day when I’m nostalgic for my early 20s, ‘Brat’ will stand out as a highlight amongst the rest of her discography purely for where I was in life, come on, I was in Spain, I’ll always have fond memories of it now! Charli’s been a fixture of my playlists since 2016, I’ll be tuned in to what her next moves are until she and I are in retirement homes. That said, despite ‘Brat’ not being my favourite project of hers, there’s definitely some tracks that’ll be getting heavy rotation this summer and for many more to come.
I’m everywhere I’m so gordia~
g, xoxo