The scorecard
8.2/10 · Great
- Songwriting25%
- 8.0
- Production25%
- 9.0
- Performance15%
- 8.5
- Cohesion15%
- 7.5
- Originality10%
- 7.5
- Replay value10%
- 8.0
Hooks like the Ciara-lifting 360 and the Apple chorus earn their lift, but the album leans on the same emotional pivot points across multiple tracks.
The A. G. Cook minimalism gives every synth squeal and vocal chop room to breathe, building a cohesive rave aesthetic from a tight palette without sacrificing grit.
Charli switches between bratty sneer on Von dutch and raw vulnerability on I think about it all the time with total command and no wasted takes.
The album peaks early with 360 through Talk talk, then sags in the middle stretch before rallying with Apple and the closing run.
The London rave throwback sound is specific to Charli's history, but the hyperpop minimalism and confessional club tracks echo her own Pop 2 blueprint.
The production details and lyrical specificity hold up on repeat, though the album's meme-level saturation in 2024 will test whether it outlasts its cultural moment.
Charli xcx BRAT — The Club Record That Chose Confrontation Over Comfort
BRAT opens with 360, a track that lifts the bass throb from Ciara's 1, 2 Step and turns it into a litany of self-mythologizing: Charli names herself the reference, the template, the friend who makes everyone cooler by proximity. It is the thesis in miniature. This is an album about what it costs to be the person everyone watches, built from the illegal London rave sound where Charli started performing as a teenager, now reimagined as stark electropop with no guest stars to soften the edges. The production, led by longtime collaborator A. G. Cook, strips out the accessibility of 2022's Crash in favor of what Charli called her most aggressive and confrontational record.
The vulnerability arrives not in spite of the club production but through it: Girl, so confusing dissects a fractured friendship with another pop star over the same squelching synths that power the album's most unrepentant bangers. The album landed at number three in the US and hit number one in the UK after the remix edition dropped, but the commercial success came second to the cultural moment. The lime green cover and the phrase brat summer became shorthand for a specific kind of messy self-awareness, adopted by everyone from the Green Party to the Kamala Harris campaign.
The risk is that the meme eats the music.
The album itself, stripped of the discourse, is a sharp 40-minute argument that pop stardom in the streaming era means performing authenticity while knowing the performance is the product. It holds the tension instead of resolving it, and the best tracks here are the ones that sound like they might collapse under the weight.
Rave Minimalism Built From a Palette of Five Sounds
The production across BRAT draws from a deliberately narrow set of elements: sawtooth bass, clipped vocal samples, pitched-down backing vocals, brittle drum machines and arpeggiated synth leads that spiral up and cut off abruptly. A. G. Cook, who executive-produced and appears on 13 of the 15 main tracks, built the album from this restricted palette to create what Charli described as a unique minimalism that is very loud and bold. The reference points are Ministry of Sound compilations from the 2000s and the squelch of electroclash, but the production never feels nostalgic because it refuses to fill the empty space.
Tracks like Club classics and B2b leave whole bars open except for the kick drum and a single synth line, trusting the groove to carry the absence. When the production does layer up, as on the chorus of Everything is romantic or the final minute of 365, the additions feel earned rather than obligatory. George Daniel, Charli's partner, co-produces on Club classics and Apple, bringing a slightly warmer mix to the vocals without sanding down the edges. Cirkut handles the two most overtly pop moments, 360 and Rewind, and both tracks use the same trick: a bass-driven verse that suddenly opens into a wide, echoing chorus.
The writing across the album is direct to the point of bluntness, with hooks that state their premise in the first line and then loop it. The Apple chorus is a one-sentence melody repeated four times with minor variation; it works because the melody itself is strong enough to survive the repetition. The weaker tracks, like I might say something stupid and Talk talk, rely on the same looping structure but without a hook that justifies it, leaving them feeling like sketches.
The album's vulnerability arrives not in confessional verses but in specific admissions dropped into otherwise brash songs.
I think about it all the time is a two-minute meditation on whether Charli will regret not having children, framed as a series of questions with no answers provided. So I addresses the death of producer Sophie with the knotty grief of someone who cannot land on a single emotion about the loss. The album does not resolve these moments or offer catharsis; it just places them next to the club tracks and lets the collision do the work. The sequencing buries some of the album's best writing in the middle stretch where the energy sags, and the lack of dynamic variation between tracks means the pacing relies entirely on tempo shifts rather than tonal changes.
An Album That Peaks in the First Third and Never Quite Recovers
The opening stretch is the album's strongest run, with three consecutive tracks where the hooks and attitude align without a wasted bar. The album never matches that momentum again. The middle section contains the most lyrically specific material, but the production flattens into a single mid-tempo churn that makes the songs blur together on a full listen.
The back half rallies the energy after the sag, with the closing run snapping back into focus. The deluxe edition adds three more tracks, and two of them feel like outtakes that were correctly left off the original sequence. Guess, produced by The Dare, is the only deluxe track that could have fit on the main album, with a flirtier tone than anything in the original 15. The album would have been stronger at 35 minutes with the sag cut out entirely, but Charli has always trusted the playlist era's tolerance for filler more than the album era's demand for rigor.
The sequencing commits to the idea that a club album should feel like a night out, with peaks and lulls and a second wind at the end. The execution does not earn the conceit because the lulls are genuinely weak rather than necessary breathing room.
A Career Peak That Will Outlast Its Meme If the Songs Get the Last Word
BRAT is Charli's sharpest and most cohesive album, the first time since Pop 2 that the production aesthetic, the writing and the persona have locked into a single argument without compromise. It ranks above Crash for ambition and above How I'm Feeling Now for craft, and it will be remembered as the moment Charli stopped chasing crossover appeal and built a sound that forced pop to meet her where she was. The album is for listeners who want their pop records to feel like a warehouse at 2am rather than a radio playlist, and who trust Charli to name her own contradictions instead of resolving them.
It is not for anyone looking for warmth or for hooks that land on the first listen; this is an album that rewards familiarity and punishes passive listening. The cultural moment around BRAT, the memes and the political co-option and the lime green everything, threatens to obscure the fact that the music itself is the most uncompromising work Charli has released on a major label. Whether it holds up in five years depends on whether the songs outlast the discourse, and the best tracks here are strong enough to survive on their own terms.
Start with the opening stretch if you are new, then play the album front to back to understand how the peaks earn the sag. For the next listen, go to Pop 2 to hear where this sound started, then to Robyn's Body Talk to hear another artist who built a career on making club music that refuses to pretend it is not lonely. BRAT will not be the album that makes Charli a household name, but it is the one that proves she never needed to be.
Track by track
Track Listing
360
StandoutThe album's opening mission statement, built on a Ciara bass lift and a chorus that lists all the ways Charli sees herself as the blueprint. The production keeps the beat sparse until the second verse, then floods the chorus with layered vocals and a synth line that spirals upward. The confidence is earned by the hook, which uses repetition to build momentum rather than cover for weak writing. The music video, featuring a parade of it girls, became part of the album's mythology, but the track works without the context because the melody is strong enough to carry the boast. One of the album's three best songs.
Club classics
StandoutA minimalist rave track that uses silence as effectively as any sound, with George Daniel's production leaving whole bars open except for the kick and a single arpeggiated synth. The verse melody is a descending figure that repeats with minor variation, and the chorus is just the title phrase looped over a bass drop. It should feel like a sketch, but the restraint makes every element hit harder. The track never builds to a climax; it just loops its central groove and trusts that the groove is enough.
Sympathy is a knife
StandoutThe sharpest writing on the album, a track about jealousy and comparison that never softens its own pettiness. The production, handled by Finn Keane and Charli, is one of the sparsest on the record, with a brittle drum machine and a synth line that cuts in and out. The verses name the feeling directly without dressing it up, and the chorus twists the knife metaphor into a hook that sticks. Speculation about whether the track is about Taylor Swift or another artist is irrelevant; the emotion is specific enough to work without decoding the reference.
I might say something stupid
SolidA brief interlude that gestures at vulnerability but does not develop the idea. Gesaffelstein's production is atmospheric, with pitched-down vocals and a slow-building synth wash, but the track ends before it earns its runtime. It functions as a palate cleanser rather than a standalone moment.
Talk talk
WeakA mid-tempo track that loops the same vocal phrase over a Hudson Mohawke beat without building to anything. The uncredited Dua Lipa backing vocals add texture, but the song never justifies its nearly three-minute runtime. The production is solid, but the writing does not give it anywhere to go. Filler.
Von dutch
StandoutThe lead single, a bratty strut with a bassline that drives the entire track. Finn Keane's production is cleaner than most of the album, with a more polished mix that softens the edges without losing the aggression. The chorus is a one-line taunt that works because Charli commits to the sneer in her delivery. The track was the album's introduction to most listeners, and it promised a more accessible record than BRAT ultimately became.
Everything is romantic
SolidA lighter moment that uses a brighter synth palette and a more optimistic lyric without abandoning the album's core sound. The production, credited to El Guincho, A. G. Cook and three others, is the busiest on the album, with multiple synth lines weaving around each other. The track works as a breather in the sequence, but it does not add much to the album's central argument.
Rewind
StandoutA direct response to Speed Drive from the Barbie soundtrack, reframing that song's sugary hooks into something more confrontational. Cirkut's production uses the same wide-open chorus trick as 360, and the result is one of the album's most overtly pop moments. The track peaks in the final minute, when the production strips back to just the bassline and Charli's vocal before building back up. Strong, but not essential.
So I
StandoutThe album's most direct reckoning with the death of producer Sophie, a track that refuses to land on a single emotion about the loss. The production, by Jon Shave and A. G. Cook, gives Charli space to work through the grief without forcing a resolution. The verses are knotty and uncomfortable, listing conflicting feelings without trying to reconcile them, and the chorus does not offer catharsis. The track is one of the album's most vulnerable moments, but it earns the vulnerability by refusing to make it easy.
Girl, so confusing
StandoutA track about a fractured friendship with another female artist, later confirmed to be about Lorde. The production is pure A. G. Cook minimalism, with a squelching bass and clipped vocal samples. The writing is the bluntest on the album, naming the confusion and resentment without dressing it up. The Lorde remix version adds a verse that responds directly to Charli's lyrics, but the original works on its own because the specificity of the emotion translates even without knowing the target. One of the album's best tracks.
Apple
StandoutThe album's strongest pure pop moment, with a chorus melody that was written with inspiration from Caroline Polachek's style. George Daniel's production keeps the verses sparse and then opens up the chorus with a bass drop and layered vocals. The hook is a simple descending figure repeated four times, but the melody is strong enough that the repetition builds momentum instead of feeling lazy. The track was released as the third single in Italy, and it is the most obvious radio candidate on the album. One of the three best songs here.
B2b
SolidA Gesaffelstein co-production that leans into the French producer's industrial aesthetic, with a clanging drum machine and a distorted bass. The track is more abrasive than most of the album, and the aggression feels intentional rather than careless. The writing is weaker than the production, with a hook that loops without developing, but the sound design is sharp enough to carry the track.
Mean girls
SolidA track about society's fascination with mean girls, partially inspired by Julia Fox and Dasha Nekrasova. The production, by A. G. Cook and Hudson Mohawke, is one of the album's busiest, with multiple synth lines competing for space. The writing is more observational than confessional, and the track does not commit to a clear position on its subject. It works as a late-album energy boost, but it does not add much thematically.
I think about it all the time
StandoutA two-minute meditation on motherhood and whether Charli will regret not having children, framed as a series of questions with no answers. The production, by A. G. Cook and Finn Keane, is gentle without softening the edges, with a synth wash that supports the vocal without overwhelming it. The track is one of the album's most specific and vulnerable moments, and it earns its brevity by refusing to overexplain. The writing trusts the listener to sit with the ambivalence instead of resolving it.
365
StandoutThe closing track, a three-minute rave finale that builds from a minimal opening into a full-throttle club banger. The production, by A. G. Cook and Cirkut, layers synths and vocal chops over a driving beat, and the track peaks in the final minute with a breakdown that strips everything back before slamming back in. The chorus is a simple one-line loop, but the production does enough work that the repetition feels celebratory rather than lazy. A strong closer that rallies the energy after the album's mid-section sag.
