Brat summer has officially transitioned into brat autumn as far as I’m concerned.
On October 11th, Charli XCX released Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, an album of remixes of the tracks on Brat. Henceforth, we will be calling the remix album “BAICDBASB” for ease.
BAICDBASB surprised me. From the remixes of “Guess” and “Girl, so confusing,” I was expecting pretty run-of-the-mill remixes: the song and it’s the same but there’s another artist and some new instrumentation so it’s not. Instead, BAICDBASB offered a much more exciting take on the concept of a remix: remix as a response.
BAICDBASB is talking to Brat. This isn’t abundantly clear on every track, but as a body of work, it is apparent once you realize it. I realized this after finishing the “Sympathy is a knife” remix. This came right after the “Club classics” remix, and those two in that order are what made me catch onto the concept. Once I continued listening to the album, it confirmed that assumption.
When I first started listening to the remix of “Club classics,” I didn’t like the interpolation of “365.” Because this wasn’t a remix of “365,” I didn’t understand why it had samples of that song. When looking at the album through the lens of a response rather than traditional remixes, it becomes clear: “365” is now a club classic itself. The Charli in this song wants to dance to what has become a club classic.
This is enhanced by the following track, “Sympathy is a knife.” The original track is about Charli’s insecurities being magnetized by another famous woman, widely speculated to be Taylor Swift. Swift is one of the most commercially successful artists ever and one of the most popular working musicians, and before Brat’s release, while Charli was famous and had hit songs, she wasn’t the huge name that she became when Brat released. Along with the remix featuring Ariana Grande, one of the most popular singers right now, the track now focuses more on being on top and others wanting to see them fall. It feels like this “Sympathy is a knife” is from the perspective of someone in Swift’s alleged position. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t initially a little disappointed to see Grande’s name instead of Swift’s when the track was announced, but I love this outcome. I also adore Grande’s voice and harmonies on this track. No style of music can keep her from her iconic runs and layered harmonies.
The remix of “Girl, so confusing” featuring Lorde is recontextualized within the album itself. Lorde’s verse as a direct response to Charli’s exemplifies what BAICDBASB is all about: response. The complicated feelings on many of the tracks are being responded to by their subjects. Lorde’s response is more direct and obvious (literally referencing the voice note Charli left her about the song), but they’re all responses. Lorde’s statement is what defines BAICDBASB: “Let’s work it out on the remix.”
Not every song was a hit. While I loved many of them, such as the ones I mentioned above, “Talk talk” with Troye Sivan, and “I think about it all the time” with Bon Iver, there were some that didn’t feel like they did anything new with the material, or that I just didn’t like. Tracks like “360” and “Guess” didn’t feel very different from the originals. I love the original “Rewind” and “So I,” so I was unsurprised that I didn’t respond to the new versions as much.
My least favorite track was “Mean girls” featuring Julian Casablancas. That remix missed the point entirely. The original track is all about praising and hyping up this “mean girl” character created by Charli, while the remix is mostly Julian Casablancas being sad. Charli’s descriptions of mean girls are removed, including the reference to the girls breaking their boyfriend’s hearts. She just repeats “this one’s for all my mean girls,” and between that and the unimaginative lyrics by Casablancas, the song just doesn’t work. It’s a major downgrade, which is a shame because I love the original track.
In conclusion, what I initially thought would be an album of songs that just sounded the same but with new voices turned out to be exciting. I was compelled by the idea of using the art of the remix to uncover new perspectives emerging from the original work. The Charli who made Brat is being replied to by the Charli who made BAICDBASB, who has new things to say post-Brat. But it isn’t truly post-Brat, since this is Brat despite it being completely different. She’s still a brat when she’s bumpin’ that.