Girl, so confusing and other brat reflections
thoughts on brat, Girl, so confusing and female friendship <3
brat has been out for 3 weeks now and I have a lot of thoughts. It’s been named the album of the summer and everyone is talking about it, at least in my corner of the internet. Charli XCX is an artist that I’ve admired for years so it’s incredible to witness her get this much critical acclaim. I love her vision and the worlds that she builds. I’m impressed with the album rollout, its marketing, the live shows, and the art itself. brat is not just an album, it's pop music history being made in real-time.
brat feels like Charli's most vulnerable project to date. It’s about the emotions that come out when you’re self-obsessed, the good and especially the bad. It's about the ups and downs of being a party girl, about being so confident and so insecure all at the same time and often overcompensating for this insecurity with a big crazy personality. The loudest girl at the party might be the saddest girl at the party and brat proves that. These emotions have been explored throughout her discography before, but not in this conceptual way.
I noticed that the singles showed us the confident side of the brat, and now the deep cuts on the album are about the insecure, lonely and scared side. Which is smart because it gives this confident persona to the public, and then if you're interested in digging deeper you can listen to the full album and discover that it's a mask.
The album explores so much introspection. It’s about comparing yourself to other women in the industry (Sympathy is a knife and Girl, so confusing). It's about following a stranger at a party and hoping they’ll start a conversation with you because you’re terrified to approach them (Talk Talk). It's about contemplating whether she should have children or not and what that would mean for your career (I think about it all the time). It’s about generational trauma and leaving your family home behind (Apple).
Topics which are all discussed in a conversational style, that make the listener feel like Charli is telling us what’s on her mind. The production varies a lot. Charli usually does either a pop album for example Crash or something more underground like how I’m feeling now but brat lies somewhere in between. Its so Charli XCX.
The album has an imperfect and quite messy aesthetic. Charli herself described the essentials for a brat summer as a BIC lighter and a white strappy top with no bra. Sort of like the aesthetic of the TV series Skins: trashy, british and overall very messy.
A point I’ve seen be made a lot is that it provides a counterpart to the girlhood discourse of Barbie, Taylor Swift and bows and pretty sundresses that has been trending for the last year or two. brat is about the messy, drunk and slutty girl and leaves a lot more room for imperfection. Obviously its incredibly reductive to put these as opposites and most women and people probably fall somewhere in between. They are internet trends after all, and none of them will actually explain what it means to be a woman in this world properly. But its refreshing that brat can add some nuance to this very pure girlhood culture that has been trending.
Is it wrong to say that my favourite song is all of them? There’s so many and I think I need to sit with them for even longer to really know which ones are the ones for me. Right now I’m really into Sympathy is a knife, Everything is romantic, Mean Girls, 365 and Guess. I also love the Sophie tribute So I. That song is beautiful and personal and feels like such an important piece of art for the queer community. One that will certainly be talked about as a piece of queer music history for many years to come.
My absolute favourite song has to be Girl, so confusing for a very obvious reason. Lorde is my favourite artist ever and Charli has released a Girl, so confusing version with lorde. Its is my favourite thing in the world right now and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. As a fan of both of them it means the world to get such a well done and moving collaboration.
The original Girl, so confusing is about a friendship between two women in the music industry who are quite different and according to fans should be great friends. When it came out everyone claimed it was about either Lorde or Marina. Specifically because of the line “People say we’re alike. They say we’ve got the same hair" and some others like the quote below. The song explores the competition between the two women and Charli sings about not knowing if the friendship is genuine or if her friend secretly wants to see her fail.
You're all about writing poems
But I'm about throwing parties
Think you should come to my party
And put your hands up
The concept of brat is quite similar to the concept of Melodrama by Lorde. Melodrama is also a concept album which takes place at a house party where a lot of emotions rise to the surface. They're both about insecurity and the different roles we take on in a party setting. Lorde even described her song Green Light as being about “that drunk girl at the party dancing around, crying about her ex-boyfriend, who everyone thinks is a mess. That’s her tonight and tomorrow she starts to rebuild.” which is quite similar to how I just said described brat.
To me, brat is Melodrama in her thirties. On Melodrama, Lorde is a heartbroken teenager who is finding independence and partying for what feels like the first time. Lorde is experiencing heartbreak and the world of fame as something new whilst Charli has been in the spotlight for over a decade. Charli also has a stable partner and is contemplating having a baby and rather than thinking about heartbreak. She is overanalysing herself and her role as this "crazy girl at the party" and whether this is who she wants to be moving forward.
Girl, so confusing version with lorde is a response, a continuation of the original songs story. Alledgedly, Charli has told Lorde how she has been feeling in a voicenote and Lorde responds in her verse that they should “work it out on the remix”. In her verse, which you can read in the text message above, Lorde explains that she has been cancelling on their plans because she has been at war with her body. She has been starving herself and didn’t want to be in the pictures. The most heartbreaking line to me is this part:
I was trapped in the hatred
And your life seemed so awesome
I never thought for a second
My voice was in your head
It seems like such a classic situation that so many of us can relate to despite not being famous pop stars. If you’re friends are not reaching out to you it’s easy to make up all sorts of scenarios as to why, but a very likely one is that they’re really struggling and self isolating from the people that they love. The line “I never thought for a second my voice was in your head” is so telling of this self hatred. She didn’t think she was important enough that she could hurt her friends feelings. It’s followed by the line “Forgot that inside the icon. There's still a young girl from Essex” reffering to Charli, the confident girl that seemingly has the perfect life.
I dont know whether I believe the story is real or not, I’m leaning towards part of it being made up and part of it being a real story. In a way it’s even more impressive if it’s a concept Charli made up. It’s obviously coming from a real place, but I’m not sure I believe that it neccesarily happened between Charli XCX and Lorde. At least not in this specific way where it’s communicated in song form. But it’s still incredibly touching because it does feel like such a universal experience. Musically it’s also perfect. I love hearing Lorde with the Charli XCX production, it really suits her voice.
It’s genius that Charli waited sometime in between releasing the versions. It gave the audience some time to make up our minds after only hearing Charli’s perspective and then Lorde came as a surprise and struck us with the other point of view. It’s smart that both perspectives are shown and they both feel very real. I’m sure many of us have felt the way Charli or Lorde feel or maybe been on both sides of the situation. The song serves as a reminder to reach out to your friends if you suspect that they’re going through a tough time.
I think about relationships a lot, especially relationships between women. Platonic and romantic and all of those in between. At worst, there can be so much comparison, jealousy and ego and at best so much joy and compassion and depth. I’m always looking for more songs about relationships between women so I have started a playlist with some of my favourites with the very fitting name Girl, so confusing. I hope you like it. If you have more songs I should add, comment them down below :)
I’m super lucky to be seeing Charli live at Roskilde Festival. I’m packing today and leaving tomorrow. I’m so excited to dance and scream and just be in a massive crowd of music lovers. It’s where I thrive!
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