BRAT by Charli XCX

Brat, Charli XCX's sixth album, arrived on Atlantic in June 2024, and it sounds like a warehouse rave remembered through a hangover. She produced it with her longtime right hand A. G. Cook, Finn Keane, Cirkut and her partner George Daniel, pulling from the English rave scene of the 2000s and hitting harder and clubbier than Crash did.

The beats are blown out and bratty, the synths buzz like a faulty strip light, and the whole thing moves at 3 a.m. speed. "360" struts, "Von Dutch" snarls, "Apple" worms its way into your head, and "Club Classics" pounds like the last hour before the lights come up. The deluxe and remix editions kept the thing growing, and the look of the cover sparked the whole Brat Summer craze. It topped the charts in the UK, went Top 3 in the US, made the Mercury Prize shortlist and won 3 Grammys, Best Dance/Electronic Album included.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.