On Thursday evening, Charli XCX treated an enthusiastic crowd of fans and music industry professionals to a special listen-in for her highly-anticipated Brat Remix Album at Storm King Art Center in Hudson Valley. The event premiered experimental, extra-planetary soundscapes reimagining tracks from the original BRAT album.
Charli’s remix album-which, provocatively enough, is titled “Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat”-reworks and reimagines tracks from the original Brat album, out this June 2024. This is no ordinary remix project. Charli approached it holistically, taking creative care with each track to make it an evolution of the original. “”Its not a matter of, hurry it up, slow it down beats,” she said during the listening party. It was like, I wanted the remixes to deal with deeper themes of fame, celebrity pressures, and toxic fan relationships but sound fresh and exciting.
The list of collaborators on this new album reads like a who’s who: pop giant Ariana Grande, indie icon Julian Casablancas on loan from The Strokes, and some otherworldly vocals thanks to the one and only Bon Iver. Each of these musicians added that special something to the collaborative remix project that had Charli continuing to experiment with hyperpop. The track “Sympathy Is a Knife,” featuring Ariana Grande, speaks on a deep level to the scrutiny that comes with public life and how celebrities negotiate unrelenting pressures from the weight of fame.
Another highlight is “Von Dutch,” which taps viral TikTok sensation Addison Rae for a look at the toxic dynamic that sometimes occurs between followers and influencers.
Charli said working on the remix album was very collaborative. She didn’t just hand over her original tracks to a remix artist; she sat down with each of the featured guest artists to craft an entirely new arrangement. “The songs aren’t just remixed-they’re transformed,” she said. The result is one deeply rich tapestry of sound that veers between Charli’s typical hyperpop and the more experimental, fusing electronic beats with introspective lyrics.
During the listening party, frequented by guests who could listen to the premiere of the album surrounded by monumental sculptures from Storm King, added a visual layer to the music. This symbolic gesture showed how the woman is never afraid to mix up some of the most popular aspects of pop culture with high art. That artistic venue was reminiscent of her creative ethos in pushing music into unexpected spaces.
One of the more improbable things about Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat is its album cover: minimal, lime-green. What started as a cost-cutting measure-“I thought the album wouldn’t sell well, so I decided to scale back the design”-has since become an iconic image for the album, resonating with fans as a statement on the wild vicissitudes of fame. As the party wound down, Charli took a moment to consider what the remix project had meant on a deeper cultural level. Album themes that touch on the scourge of fame and celebrity pressures are timely in an era when artists are speaking more and more about the darker sides of their success.
It features artists such as Billie Eilish, Lorde, and Troye Sivan; basically, this remix album is a cultural touchstone capturing the spirit of today’s musical landscape while offering a self-reflective look at the cost of fame.
