Driven by her desire to fully embrace club music, the British artist's sixth record fuses well-earned confidence and vulnerability in thrilling fashion Charli XCX’s sixth album is one, she says, that she was destined to create. Writing on X (fka Twitter) ahead of its release, she told followers : “i was born to make dance music..
i came from the clubs..[sic]”, addressing the sonic world she dives into on the project, adding: “xcx6 is the album i’ve always wanted to make.
” ‘Brat’ follows 2022’s ‘Crash’ , on which XCX “put her own spin on mainstream pop” for a record she dubbed her “major label sell-out” album, released as her initial record contract came to a close with Asylum (she recently re-upped with Asylum’s parent company Atlantic for ‘Brat’). Her sixth record shifts away from these sounds, and sees her pushing the limits of her own sonic world. It’s something XCX has done throughout her career: take 2016’s future-facing EP ‘Vroom Vroom’, a release that divided critics at the time but has since won over cult adoration, or ‘How I’m Feeling Now’, a project XCX very publicly pulled together over the course of five and a half weeks during the pandemic (documenting the process online).
While ‘Crash’ boasted more traditional pop sounds (take synth-pop lead single ‘Good Ones’, or ‘Beg For You’ which interpolates Eurodance belter ‘Cry for You’), with ‘Brat’ she fully commits to the dancefloor. On the self-desc.