POP MUSIC IS BACK, BABY!

POP MUSIC IS BACK, BABY!

Words by Kara Carter

Charli XCX released her electropop album titled “Brat” on June 7, and since then it has been a brat summer. The simple album cover with the word “brat”and a green background has taken over the internet with people dubbing anything with similar shades of green as “brat.” People have been making their own shirts with the similar shades of green, snapping pictures of green cars, ordering matcha lattes with the inclination of “brat behavior” the lists go on and on.

The album makes the listener feel like they’re being transported to a club with the first song “360.” The song gives the listener the feeling of walking into a club, scoping out the scene and setting the tone for the night. The second song, “Club Classics,” is an upbeat, fast-paced instant classic that gives the listener the feeling of being in a club, and the DJ isn’t playing the right music, so they just want to take over and get people dancing.

The third song, “Sympathy Is a Knife,” combines the lyrical vulnerability of admitting the jealousy that harbors within yourself with an electronic dance beat. The song also digs into self doubt and what it is like to have fleeting thoughts of self destruction all with the juxtaposition of the hyperpop sound.

The album goes through these peaks and valleys of being emotionally vulnerable with ballads like “So I” that uses autotune as a shield to hide the emotions of losing a friend and reminiscing on how life was with them here. The album steers toward what life is like with a close friend who is gone and what they should do now with the things they left behind in the world.

Charli XCX shares very intimate fears, emotions and issues within her life that many can relate to. The song “I Think About It All the Time” tells a story about visiting a friend who just had a baby and seeing how a friend can change but still be the same person. The beauty of parenthood and how they now have the knowledge of something in life that you don’t, because you don’t have a child. The song also gives the feeling of having the thought of a woman’s biological clock in the back of the mind, the clock on a constant tick. The song battles the choice of having time for a career and having a child.

The album ends with the song “365.” It is a remix of the first song “360,” but it is reversed and put on its head. The song carries the same beat but sped up, and the lyrics are more intense, matching the rhythm. It uses the background phrase “bumpin’ that” from “360,” at the forefront and is one of the main lyrics to the song. The song is a perfect outro for the album, summing up the highs and lows from the album and tying it all together.

The album is rated a 95 by MetaCritic with one reviewer describing the album as “distilled and bottled cool that sings with fully realized potential, the release of inhibitions, the kind of confidence that can only be earned through shame, and the sort of hooks that God touches you with.”

There are other artists that are on remixes of the songs from the album like Lorde, Yung Lean, Robyn and Addison Rae with rumored appearances by Caroline Polachek and Shygirl.

“Brat” has influenced other artists like Camilla Cabello and Katy Perry to take a more grungy, “bratty” approach to their music with their aesthetic and sound with both wearing tattered and torn looking garments and messy hair and eyeliner. Both artists have since used similar electronic sounds along with autotune with their new song releases.

Looks like we are on the cusp of a bratty and iconic pop summer.