That’s it, then. The shark has been jumped. Brand deals and excessive collaborations on an initially stunning album have made their way into terminally online territories. Did we all have a brat summer? The facade of fun began wearing off when autumn came knocking, asking once more to continue having a brat of a time. Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat is an eye-roll of a project. The original material is exceptional, a sudden cultural cornerstone which captured some shift in the public mood. But this feels excessive, ingenuine even. New lyrics with artists Charli XCX is interested in collaborating with. Nothing more. A repossession of the stylish original in the hands and voices of artists who offer very little, vocally speaking, to the context of the songs. Remixes are almost always an afterthought, and there is no escaping it with these Brat additions.
Pale imitations of great songs on what feels more like a gimmick than an active pursuit of new creative avenues for these songs. That is the lead issue with Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat. Very few collaborating artists add anything to the deeper meaning of the song they are on. They are more for the fan accounts of pop musicians who get their news from Pop Crave. One of the leading interests in Brat is Charli XCX’s lyrical differences. Remove those and you have impenetrable, uneven covers. When an established artist comes in to toy with the fundamentals of the song, like The 1975 on I Might Say Something Stupid, it sounds more like a loose riff from their studio works than an adaptation of the chilling album track. There are few moments throughout this additional release worth being excited for, most of it turns bold and identifiable, culturally relevant club tones into lazy pop riffs.
Each Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat track must figure out its route to being better than, or an interesting take on, the song it is based on. Very few manage it and beyond the joy of name-checking collaborations, there is little brilliance, even with a few lyrical tweaks from Charli XCX. Von Dutch sounds solid enough, but it loses its charm and the knock-on effect is feeling the cultural phenomenon fatigue. Charli XCX has made a considerable effort to make some distance between these re-written remixes and the original work, but the additions do not feel as relevant or shocking as the originals, aside from Von Dutch and a few pieces from the likes of Caroline Polachek and Julian Casablancas. Even then, they are not a scratch on the original. The likes of Bladee, Billie Eilish and Lorde add what can be considered a new layer to the song, but they are the closest to how the original sounded.
Ultimately it is participation in the popularity contest the charts and dedicated fans desire. Charli XCX may be uninterested in both but there is no denying the trajectory of it if participating. Brat and It’s Completely Different But Also Still Brat is, indeed, completely different. A.G. Cook provides excellent work on So I, though the issue once more is exceeding the attitude, style and instrumental class of the original. It does not. Unremarkable but inevitable. Look at them as extended editions of the original song and it still fails to make much of an impact. Girl, So Confusing is a remarkable addition to the album but it relies on the knowing tone in its lyrics. “The internet will go crazy,” and that they did. It is not a question of being genuine in music but it is a large experiment in playing up to the expectations of rabid fans.
