Charli XCX‘s Brat multiverse expands again today (Oct. 11) with the release of its remixed edition. Given that Brat is sonically and spiritually a club record, the remixed version is an apt and perhaps predictable compendium. But that’s not to say the project — officially and very Bratily titled Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat — simply just pushes Brat further into the sweaty dancefloors of Ibiza and New York and London and L.A.
Nah. While plenty of Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat remains as danceable, if not sometimes more so, than the original, the remit clearly wasn’t to toss out a bunch of tech house edits and call it a day, but to genuinely rework each track on all levels. The project is as much about offering new sounds and arrangements as it is about expanding and deepening the themes of each song through new lyrics from Charli and her collection of collaborators.
In that sense, Charli’s mournful Sophie tribute “So I” transforms into a vastly more celebratory but still deeply nostalgic recollection of the good times the pair shared together. In its more meta moments, the remixes consider how Charli’s life has changed following the success of Brat, with the edits on “Von Dutch,” “Rewind” and others including lyrics about fans who say they like you but then seem to hate you, uncomfortable experiences with journalists and suddenly having a lot more money and a lot more to cross off the to-do list. And while the nonstop element was based around relentless partying, here it’s more about going from the show to the photo shoot to the plane to the hotel room in perpetuity because Charli’s career is going so well.
As on Brat, the artist’s honesty and lyrical specificity are one of the most interesting parts of the project, offering windows into her existence (hungover in a Tokyo hotel room, watching a woman on a Lime scooter vomit in London) and the wild swirl it’s become during Brat summer.
Unsurprisingly, following the album’s creative and commercial triumph, a lot of big names are involved in the remixes (with there presumably also somewhere existing a list of artists who would’ve liked to be on it but didn’t get the invite). The assembled crew includes people in Charli’s immediate orbit — The 1975‘s Matty Healy, who’s the bandmate of Charli’s fiancé George Daniel, the 1975 collaborator The Japanese House, Charli’s current tour mates Troye Sivan and Shygirl — along with further afield collaborators who were arguably lured not by the freewheeling creative opportunities of the project (see the stunning contribution by Midwestern polymath Bon Iver), but also by the chance to step into Charli’s level of honesty.
To that end, Ariana Grande’s appearance on “Sympathy Is a Knife” finds her telling it like it is (for her) with a forthrightness that’s refreshing and genuinely interesting. That same invite was, of course, previously extended to and accepted by Lorde, who, by working it out on the remix, helped show the potential for this project — potential it achieves with a success that’s by now predictable for anything Brat related, but which here also feels totally fresh and often even revelatory.
Here’s a ranked of the 16 remixes on Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat.
-
“365 featuring shygirl”
Shygirl is an apt guest for the “365” edit, given that the British singer/songwriter/producer is currently playing arenas with XCX and Troye Sivan as a support act on their Sweat Tour. Shygirl gives a smooth, delicious verse that pairs well with Charli’s pitched up vocals, and together the pair dial up the hectic feel of the original, adding dashes of gabber, a buzzsaw synth and “365” repeated over and over, altogether giving the sense that adopting the identity of a perpetual party person might eventually fry one’s brain a bit.
-
“B2b featuring tinashe”
The dark urgency of the original is traded for a brighter, lusher edit on which lyrics about back-to-back breakups and romantic partners are exchanged for thoughts on the back-to-back lifestyle of pop fame. “I travel around the world to 15 countries in four days,” Charli recaps, “and after I get offstage I’m on set shooting til the a.m./ I’m f—ing tired but I love it/ And I’m not complaining/ Oh s—, I kind of made it.” Meanwhile the song’s guest Tinashe keeps it light, singing about “the way my ass looks in these jeans” with a warm, rich timbre.
-
“Rewind featuring bladee”
Whereas the original “Rewind” found Charli getting nostalgic for the pre-fame era of life when she was just painting her toenails in her bedroom, this refreshed version lists the components of fame that now make life strange, with Charli singing about her media coverage, having lots of money and how being in Los Angeles makes her competitive. Swedish rapper bladee declares in an almost blasé cadence that “I must confess, I’m under stress, I’m under pressure in my head.” Meanwhile the crisp, zippy production of the original is transformed into a slower, hazier affair.
-
“360 featuring robyn & yung lean”
Charli unrolls the red carpet for one of the original queens of dance music, with Robyn coming onto the track to declare that “I started so young I didn’t even have email; now my lyrics’s on your booby.” The mood on this one generally maintains the the same head-bobbing bubbliness, with the addition of Robyn and fellow Swede Yung Lean turning this “360” into a breezy, frothy group hang.
-
“I might say something stupid featuring the 1975 & jon hopkins”
The Brat ballad leans into another realm of the electronic world by becoming more or less an ambient track, with The 1975’s Matty Healy re-recording some of Charli’s original lyrics (“I get so cold,” “I’m famous but I’m not quite”) and adding breathy new ones (“It’s pretty common/ It happens to lots of guys/ Medicine makes me a problem/ I’m famous but I’m not quite”) over thoughtful piano and warm layers of synth from mood-making master Jon Hopkins. The anxiously contemplative song then builds into a crescendo of drums that swells like the big feelings this one explores.
-
“Club classics featuring bb trickz”
Stripped of the synths that added softness and swirling melody to the original, with the “put your hands up and dance” sing-song chorus also eradicated, the original “Club Classics” is almost unrecognizable here. The remix is instead centered around a stuttering, sharp-edged beat built from a vocal chop and Charli’s sped-up lyrics. Spanish singer bb trickz contributes a saucy verse to this deconstructed edit, where the dark, woozy vibe is more 5 a.m. at the after-hours with the hardcores than peak time at the crowded club.
-
“Talk talk featuring troye sivan”
Sivan evolves the sexual fantasy spun up in the original, turning the song into a duet by declaring, OK, here’s the plan, I want to fly you out to Amsterdam” before stating less SFW details of the program. While the original “Talk Talk” is a sonically and lyrically giddy list of desires, this one is a wish fulfilled, with Charli and Troye finding joy in each other’s company and the punched-up production giving this one a truly celebratory and indeed happy climactic vibe.
-
“Apple featuring the japanese house”
Getting to the airport is much less of a focus here, with guest The Japanese House turning “Apple” into a slightly less peppy but still bright and swiftly moving synth-pop song about feeling so, so sad. Overall the reworked lyrics dig further into the melancholy of a romantic relationship, with Charli coming in near the end to state that “sometimes when I go home, it doesn’t feel like home/ I don’t know if you can hear me inside this conversation,” which leads her to feeling like she just wants to drive away from it all.
-
“Mean girls featuring julian casablancas”
The remix slyly pays homage to the downtown New York City party girls it references by bringing in Julian Casablancas, a key downtown NYC party person of the early aughts, for the edit. Casablancas, who also has strong ties to the electronic world through his work on Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, blasts onto the jaunty, piano-laced edit, seeming to interpolate the melody of Yes’ “Owner of a Lonely Heart” as he sings about a rollercoaster relationship. Charli joyfully interjects that “this one’s for all my mean girls!” — with the song ultimately becoming more about the ups and downs of romantic love and the mean girls (and boys) who make relationships challenging.
-
“Guess featuring billie eilish”
The first remix to come from Brat that wasn’t also already on the original remains as giddy and jaw-dropping as it was the day it dropped (which, for the record, was Aug. 1), with the absolute swagger of Billie and Charli in tandem giving an almost overwhelming feeling, particularly as they lean hard into giggly innuendo and much more straightforward lyrical content about your underwear and what you’ve got going on down there over driving electro production. The final result is so effective it almost makes the original seem like just a preliminary sketch for this final form.
-
“Everything is romantic featuring caroline polachek”
The meaning of this one changes significantly with the remix, with the Italian love story of the original traded out for the feelings that come when you get home from vacation and it’s raining and you’ve got a pile of dirty laundry from the trip to do and you wonder if all those big romantic feelings are still real in the real world, especially when you’re a famous musician jetting around the globe for work while also trying to find time to nourish your relationship.
Trading Italy for a song largely set in London, Caroline Polachek lays down a foundation of sublime vocal runs, over which Charli asks questions like “Am I in a slump? Am I playing back time? Did I lose my perspective? Everything is still romantic, right?” with mega-specific scenes about calling a friend hungover from a Tokyo hotel, or seeing a girl throw up off the back of a Lime bike in London, functioning as comedown parallels to the highs of love and success. With the last line Charli calls back to “that life” referenced in “Von Dutch,” this time questioning if the jet-setting is truly as fabulous as it might seem. “Living that life is romantic, right?”
-
“Girl, so confusing featuring lorde”
This remix was of course included on the original Brat, and while nothing changes here, the honesty of this one — on which Charli talks about her confusing relationship with Lorde and Lorde answers back about her thoughts on the matter and what she herself was going through — remains just as affecting. Arguably the levels of honesty and vulnerability on this one helped draw out the true confessions of big stars like Ariana Grande and the 1975’s Matty Healy — showing them and the world at large that pop stars just plainly telling us and each other how it really is can be equally riveting and cathartic.
-
“Von dutch a.g. cook remix featuring addison rae”
The edit on what was Brat‘s debut single, released in February, leans into commentary about how the dials of fame have been cranked to 11 for Charli since the album’s release. The cocky, prototypically Brat tone of the original is maintained with lyrics about Louis Vuitton bags, revenue streams and how everyone wants to be Charli and her remix partner in crime Addison Rae, whose slinky voice is a perfect compliment Charli’s.
But the pair also point to the hard parts of cultural ubiquity, as the duet acknowledges that even though there’s a lot of people who want to scream their names, the double-edged sword of it all can cut. “All these girls are like, ‘Can I get a picture,’” Charli bluntly states near the song’s end, “then they go online like, ‘just kidding I hate you.’” Producer A.G. Cook underlines the sentiment throughout by dropping the chugging electro production and instead making the track woozier and slightly darker, adding the sound of actual screams that could either be the sound of excited fans or the pair expressing how it can sometimes feel to be them.
-
“Sympathy is a knife featuring ariana grande”
This remix is arguably one of the project’s most anticipated given the star power added by Grande, an aficionado on fame who’s guesting on a song that was rumored to be written about Taylor Swift. But the rework is less about the insecurity fostered by comparison and more about the cutting effects fame has on those at its nexus.
XCX first recites elements of celebrity that are a a knife (misquoting journalists, when your old friends hate your new friends, people telling her she’s changed) before Grande continues the laundry list in her gossamer tone. “It’s a knife when you know they’re counting on your mistakes/ It’s a knife when you’re so pretty they think it must be fake/ It’s a knife when they dissect your body on the front page/ It’s a knife when they won’t believe you, why should you explain?”
The harmonies between the two here are terrific, with the honesty creating a level of accessibility to, and maybe even feelings of real sympathy for, these big stars. The song then takes a turn in its last 30 seconds, turning crunchy and hard, with a sound like a distorted radio signal drawing listeners into the dilemma by creating a sense of discord.
-
“I think about it all the time featuring bon iver”
The pastoral prince of Wisconsin brings the ’80s soft rock radio vibe to one of Brat‘s already soft tracks, with the edit’s warm, layered-up synths creating a gauzy foundation for Charli to further contemplate if, how and when to become a mother — an endeavor that, despite having found love, feels incompatible with her career.
“First off you’re bound to the album, then you’re locked into the promo,” Charli declares in a cadence done in homage to Mike Skinner of The Streets, with these new lyrics adding context to the sentiments of the original. “Next thing three years have gone by, me and George sit down and try to plan for our future, but there’s so much guilt involved when we start working.” Bon Iver adds his own eternally gorgeous vocal runs while cleverly shoring up to the time crunch sentiment, singing elements of Bonnie Raitt’s 1989 song “Love In the Nick of Time,” with Raitt’s voice itself entering at the end.
Altogether the remix brings the already affecting original — relatable to many a careerist woman — to a sentimental, misty-eyed place that (like the song’s central dilemma) has one foot in the electronic world and another in a more tender realm.
-
“So I featuring a.g. cook”
On one of the project’s most emotionally affecting remixes, Charli takes the original homage to her late friend and collaborator Sophie and swaps out the lamentation and grief about losing her with remembering the good times. The song thus loses the “it’s okay to cry” lyrics completely, and A.G. Cook speeds up the BPM and adds brightness to the production, naturally working in elements of the hyperpop genre that he, Sophie and Charli played a big part in creating.
The song simmers to a start with a long, whistle-like synth that gives way to Charli reciting memories in rapid-fire form: meeting Sophie in Stockholm, her and Cook getting her a birthday cake, a special night at FORM Arcosanti in Arizona (“When I look back, what the f— was I wearing?” inquires Charli), crying to Sophie’s music because “no songs ever made us feel that much,” writing lyrics together via text.
This specific, fabric of life stuff gives this remix a diary feel, while also generously offering specifics that give Sophie and Charli’s relationship greater texture and life — creating a generous, effective, life-affirming tribute that adds to the Sophie mythology while also humanizing her.
