Brat Summer
I wanna dance to me.
A few weeks ago, Chet Hanks released a statement.
“I have consulted with the heavens, felt a westward breeze, and walked outside of a strip club and saw my shadow… this will be a #WBS.”
White Boy Summer! A bold declaration. But immediately, the dominos would fall. Hunter Biden, Luca Dončić, Justin Timberlake… L after L for the squad.
How could you expect any different?
Everyone knows who this season really belongs to.
“With her sixth album, Charli XCX transcends all narratives and delivers a hit. BRAT is imperious and cool, nuanced and vulnerable, and one of the best pop albums of the year.”
Don’t have much to add here!
There’s already think pieces, podcasts and meme roundups you’d be better served by anyway. Still, I have to shout out an album that has been the only thing in my AirPods (Cash Cobain notwithstanding) since it dropped — one of the rare cases where the music more than justifies its promotional omnipresence.
Sassy, silly, self-aware. Sleeve art perfection. Expertly-sequenced production that sounds maximal and blown out, but is actually almost radical in its restraint (can’t wait to dig into the Tape Notes pod. “You gon’ jump if A.G. made it!”)
The album stands in stark contrast to the (many!) too big to fail pop projects that sand away any real edges or personality.
It’s all personality!
Charli’s constant, fourth-wall breaking shout-outs to the XCXtended Universe fall somewhere in between “the walrus was Paul” and “is that Horse, it must be, I heard he husky.” Haven’t even dived into this Joycean Lorde remix yet. That said, the bars are much more than easter eggs and lore.
Jumping from this…
…to this?!?
C’mon now!
BRAT’s diaristic peaks and valleys — unafraid to bring the room down at the exact point where it’s meant to explode — understand that the club bathroom bump and the afterparty ego death are not mutually exclusive.
We’re basically the same age (a thing I often say about people ten years younger than me) so this smile cry energy throughout feels all too familiar, ping-ponging between bad bitch playlist fare and existential dread.
To live in the present is to be messy.
To pretend otherwise is dishonest.
To make this cognitive dissonance fun is an achievement.
BRAT embraces the never-ending, synapse-frying contradictions of an inner monologue in a way that will make it a classic. If landmines are everywhere — the state of the world, an ever-changing roster of frenemies, the realization that you will always be your biggest opp — there’s something beautiful about choosing to dance your way through them.
With Skream and Benga on the remix!