After sprinkling us with a few remixes following the major success of brat, and all that came with it, Charli XCX has unveiled, brat and it’s completely different but also still brat, featuring remix versions to every smash hit off the original.
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Rather than commissioning a bunch of rando or even famed DJs to reinterpret the songs, production credits on the reworks go to brat’s original creators. However, that’s about all that’s stayed the same, in addition to all the added featured artists, and the “completely different but also still brat” title, most of the tracks have been substantively changed, with entirely different lyrics even on Charli’s verses.
An alternate-universe reimagining of the original album if you will, serving as an extension to its predecessor, the remix album includes previously released remixes — “Von dutch” with A.G. Cook and Addison Rae, “360” with Robyn and Yung Lean, the “Girl, so confusing” remix with Lorde, "Guess" with Billie Eilish, and “Talk Talk” featuring her tourmate Troye Sivan.
The album also welcomes Ariana Grande on a very meta remix for “Sympathy Is a Knife,” on which Ari claps back at the musings about her in recent media coverage. “It’s a knife when you’re so pretty they think it must be fake / It’s a knife when they dissect your body on the front page,” Grande sings.
Longtime collaborator A.G. Cook appears for a second time on the new version of “So I,” while The 1975, the band where her fiancé George Daniel serves as drummer, plus Jon Hopkins pop up on “I might say something stupid.”
Bon Iver can be found on the remix for one of the album’s more introspective songs, “I think about it all the time,” and The Japanese House added to the album’s viral hit “Apple.”
With Caroline Polecheck’s addition to “Everything Is Romantic,” the song is transformed from being about finding beauty in a foreign land into being about losing oneself in a foreign land. Meanwhile, The Strokes’ Julian Casablancas takes the pouting, coquettish vibe of “Mean girls” off its hinges, and Bb trickz helps serve up a chopped up reimagining of “Club classics.”
The rest of brat and it’s completely different but also still brat is rounded out by a grimy techno-fied “365” featuring Shygirl, a synthy sped-up version of “B2b” featuring Tinashe, and a slowed down, somber spin on the self-reflective “Rewind” featuring bladee.
Listen to brat and it’s completely different but also still brat below.