The moment bent on Charli as winter turned to spring, starting with February's Boiler Room set that broke the label's RSVP record in a matter of hours. In a sweaty Bushwick warehouse, next door BRAT producers AG Cook and EasyFun, debuted on the album's first single, “Von dutch,” whose swirling synths evoke flashbacks to the mid-'00s electro of Boys Noize and the Bloody Beetroots, with a problem before the fall that you can feel inside. . “It's okay to admit you're jealous of me,” she croons, winking but meaning it. The imperial streak continues with its follow-up, “Club classics,” whose stripped-down bounce declares her intentions to dance to her own tracks all night long. Is it just me or is “360” her best pure pop tune in years? (The video, filled with It Girls, feels heavy but not unfair.) For years, both Charli and her detractors seemed distracted by her status—the underground darling who either would or couldn't graduate. in Main Pop Girl. Then something changed, and it didn't seem to matter. He had something they didn't. She was cool.
With Reddit's disco-filled charts and whiny pop detective, I'd happily take 15 top shouts for being iconic and dressing like you. The Simple Life, as Charlie seemed to tease. And as a tribute to French dance music of the late 90s and 2000s, from the euphoric potion of Crydamoure and Roulé to the disco heavy metal of Ed Banger, BRAT delivers. I hear Bangalter and Braxe in the compressed trance of 'Talk talk', the sweetness of Breakbot in 'Apple', shades of DJ Mehdi's piano drama in 'Mean girls'. “Rewind,” a love letter to the naivety of the MySpace era, is served up with a strong spoken word somewhere between Uffie's “Pop the Glock” and The Teaches of Peaches. Charli echoes the sentiment on “Girl, so confusing,” a song that brings up a dozen “indie dance” memories I was sure I'd repressed. Not once in 42 minutes does the momentum falter.
But beyond the singles, Charli complicates her idea of the flamboyant bad bitch whose ideas people love by beginning to explore far more compelling themes: jealousy, narcissism, “girl power.” On “I may say something stupid,” whose Gesaffelstein piano chords distill the essence of early Justice, she returns to her marginal position in the industry, describing with writerly precision what it feels like to be the least famous person at the party: “Snag my leggings out on the lawn chair/Guess I'm crap and play the part'. I've never had a Charli lyric run around my head the way the lines from “Apple” do, with its weird fruit allegory and wonderfully vague observations about driving to the airport. On “Sympathy is a knife,” whose cues and modulated banshee screams sound more like the Charli we've come to know, she revolves around an acquaintance who taps into her insecurities: “I couldn't even be her if I tried.” (“I don't want to see her backstage at my boyfriend's show,” he continues. “Fingers crossed behind my back, I hope they break up quickly.” Wait…)
