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2024 is really shaping up to be one of the best years of pop music for this decade huh? Because here I am writing another album review after a several month hiatus.

English pop singer Charli xcx, hailing from the exotic lands of Essex, needs no introduction by now. Her sixth, studio album Brat was released in all its Shrek-green glory in June this year, just in time for a true hot girl brat summer. The album immediately rose to critical acclaim, as evidenced by it receiving the highest honor of all – a coveted 10/10 from the Internet’s busiest music nerd Fantano, which you can watch here.

Despite not really fitting with the brat ideals and my only taste of inebriation coming from 6 years ago when the dentist injected me with anesthesia to rid me of my teeth for braces, I really liked the album. It is definitely loud and boisterous at times, fitting with the nature of house music and its namesake, but the album also showed moments of real vulnerability and raw emotion in tracks like I Think About It All The Time and So I, which is a touching tribute to Charli’s greatest musical influence – the late SOPHIE.

Charli herself kept up the momentum of Brat, even after a strange political moment involving Harris campaign’s Brat rebrand, and continued to release features and remixes until now with the most notable one being the Lorde feature on Girl, So Confusing, where the two truly worked it out on the remix.

I really adored the Lorde feature – there’s something so refreshing in its honesty and the acknowledgement that, yeah, female friendships aren’t always easy, but they are important.

So when Charli announced a remix album, aptly named Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat, I was hyped to say the least. Charli had released a couple singles that I wasn’t crazy about, but I was still excited.

All that yapping to say, is the remix album good?

Yes, it is.

I know some folks were upset that she restructured some of the songs, but…it’s a remix album. I would be pretty underwhelmed if the new tracks all followed the same structure as the Guess remix with Billie Eilish, and the new tracks were refreshing to listen to. Charli really let each of her collaborators shine, especially shown by the phenomenal Bon Iver feature on I Think About It All the Time, where Bon Iver’s signature haunting vocals really add to the raw emotion behind the track and its subject matter.

Possible downsides to Charli’s approach to remix albums are that the strength of the tracks really depend on her collaborators. Whilst I think Addison Rae has a lot of potential, I don’t think it really came through on the Von dutch remix, and the Sympathy is a knife remix with Ariana Grande was definitely not one of my favorites – publicity around Grande aside, I just didn’t think her voice meshed that well here.

That being said, I think the remixed tracks are a definite must-listen if you’re a big fan of the Brat album, but let’s be real – you’ve probably heard it already.

Best Track(s): “Girl, So Confusing (ft Lorde)”, “I Think About It All the Time (ft Bon Iver)”, “B2b (ft Tinashe)”, “365 (ft Shygirl)”

Rating: Brat/10