Verdict: 4.5/5

Charli XCX marked the continuation of “Brat Summer” with the release of her newest album “Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat” on Oct. 11, 2024. The new release follows her albums “Brat,” released on June 7, 2024 and “Brat and It’s the Same but There’s Three More Songs So It’s Not,” released June 10, 2024. 

“Brat” was Charli XCX’s sixth studio album, and though she has been internationally recognized for hit songs such as “I Love It” featuring Icona Pop, “Boom Clap,” and more recently “Speed Drive” on the Barbie album, “Brat” put Charli XCX heavily in the spotlight. In July, Charli XCX began to trend again after making a post on X calling presidential candidate Kamala Harris “brat,” which was her message of support towards Harris. “Brat” continued to blow up in popularity on social media and sparked many trends for its simple bright green branding and the cool, party-girl feel of the album. 

“Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat” contains all of the same songs from the original “Brat” album, but each song is remixed and includes a feature from at least one artist. Many songs, such as “Girl, so confusing” featuring Lorde and “Guess” featuring Billie Eilish were available to stream prior to the release of the new album. 

In my first listen-through of the album, I didn’t know what to expect with the remixed songs and all of the different artists, as I only knew a handful of the artists. Although five remixed songs had been released before this album out of the 17 remixed songs that would eventually be released, I had only listened to three of the songs. To my surprise, the first track, “360” featuring Robyn and Young Lean, kept the lovable melody and beat from “Brat,” and molded the song around the new artists to flatter their voices well. 

Other songs, such as “I might say something stupid” featuring The 1975 and Jon Hopkins, took a complete 180 both in the overall composition of the album and from the original, non-remixed song. While the majority of both the original and remixed album falls under the genre of house and electronic pop, this song took on a slower piano melody. The only other song that had the same feel as this one was “I think about it all the time” featuring Bon Iver, which definitely piqued my interest seeing the announcement for the album, as Bon Iver and Charli XCX collaborating felt very surprising to me because of their different styles. The song, however, blended some of the electronic beats and slower lyricism much better than I would have expected. 

Because of the success of her original album, I found myself hearing a lot of Charli XCX’s songs online, which made me a little tired of hearing them. With the new remixes, especially for overplayed songs like “Apple,” it felt refreshing to listen to them now on the new album. Even with songs I did not hear much before, I preferred the new remixed songs because of their unique takes on the original songs. “Talk talk” featuring Troye Sivan is one of my personal favorites on the new album, and though I did like the original song too, Sivan’s vocals and flow in the song matched Charli XCX’s style perfectly. 

Though I really appreciated the remixes for nearly all of the songs, there were some which I felt were better without the features. While I really liked the remix of “Sympathy is a knife,” especially with Ariana Grande, I overall still prefer the original song. The remix repeats the same beginning for almost the entire time, which I did not love as much, while I thought the original song was much more creative. 

Charli XCX’s ability to reshape her already iconic songs from “Brat” into this remix album with the various artists clearly shows her range and talent as an artist. My expectation going into the album was that feature artists would generally take the original songs, sing a couple verses on them and maybe change a few of the lyrics. Instead, Charli XCX created a unique album with various wonderful artists that was able to showcase all of their talents beautifully and in a creative way.