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When Charli XCX announced the end of Brat Summer in September, fans had no idea a new lime green season was on the horizon. Now, with the release of her Brat remix album, the writing’s on the wall: Brat Autumn has arrived.
The album, officially titled Brat and It’s Completely Different but Also Still Brat, includes remixes of all 16 songs from the original album, featuring artists such as Bon Iver, Ariana Grande, and Tinashe.
On X, reactions to the new drop were mixed. Several listeners expressed their distaste for the project, with one calling it “ass” and another calling it “clickbait.” Azealia Banks counted herself as a hater before the album even came out, describing it as “desperate” and “dated.”
Many listeners had more positive things to say. Among longtime fans, a common sentiment was that the remix album sounds like a return to form for Charli XCX. A number of fans compared it to her earlier work, such as her beloved 2017 mixtape Pop 2. Many noted that this album is not for the new fans—it’s for the OGs who really get Charli.
“brat remix is for the ones who were there BEFORE brat btw,” wrote one fan. “this one was for angels, not for the brats,” wrote another, referring to a decade-old moniker for Charli’s fandom. “Brat remix album is weeding out the boring bitches,” declared someone else.
Several fans took an intellectual approach to the album, considering the musical and thematic transition from Brat Summer to Brat Autumn.
“If BRAT is meant to capture the experience of a raucous night out the remix album is definitely the wistful moment when the party ends and you’re on the way home lamenting going back to real life,” wrote one listener. “Melancholic and sublime,” another fan posted.
Fans react to Julian Casablancas’ Brat feature
Track 13, “Mean girls featuring julian casablancas,” generated discourse on X that represents a microcosm of larger debates about the album.
Julian Casablancas is best known as the frontman for the indie rock band The Strokes, who had their heyday in the early and mid-2000s and exemplified the “indie sleaze” (and tumblrcore) aesthetic of the era. Casablancas is a sometimes controversial figure, known for his rockstar antics—a standoffish attitude and dating women half his age.
Several listeners argued that Casablancas ruined the song and that the men are the worst part of the remix album. But many others were surprised by how much the track ate. “briefly taking a sabbatical from hating julian casablancas to say that the mean girls remix is the best thing he’s done all year,” wrote one listener.
Once again, the notion was if you get it, you get it. “it’s not for the uncultured fans who lack intellectual perspective to understand the depth of its implications,” wrote one X user. “none of you will understand it more than i will,” wrote another.
Many noted that what makes the remix great is the contrast between Charli’s upbeat verses and Casablancas’ despondent ones. (Casablancas went through a divorce recently.) Several people posted the Two Guys On A Bus meme to poke fun at the duality. As one fan waxed poetic: “i love julian casablancas and charli singing together….harmonizing his distortion w her autotune…..they sound like what diet coke tastes like.”
Fans gatekeeping Brat remix album
A big part of music fandom is listening to your faves’ music with the context of their larger oeuvre in mind—analyzing and forming opinions based on your relationship to their work and career.
For Charli’s pre-Brat fans, there is a sense of gleeful gatekeeping occurring here, as longtime listeners see their good taste being vindicated and their devotion appreciated.
Charli XCX is an artist who knows how to spark discussion, and this new iteration of Brat is no different. (As an aside, the return of Brazilian users to X has no doubt increased the density of these conversations, as some of the posts collected for this piece were originally written in Portuguese.) She continues to make headlines, while her fans are committed to preserving her good name.
Those who see the vision, as many fans put it, are ready to welcome Brat Autumn with open arms. Everyone else will have to find other seasonal allegiances.
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