On her best songs, such as “Vroom Vroom” or “Speed Drive,” Charli XCX is in the driver seat of something flashy, like a Ferrari, racing through red lights and leaving the competition behind. Often, the destination is unclear, unknown or unimportant: The point — as it has been whether Chuck Berry had “No Particular Place to Go” or Tracy Chapman was planning the future via “Fast Car” — is the journey.
Until now. On her new album, “Brat,” the 31-year-old singer-songwriter is headed to the site of her artistic inception and the place where she seems most comfortable, the club, with a Serato full of serotonin. And after the ups-and-downs of over a decade in the music industry, it feels like she’s finally home.
Sophie, an iconic and influential dance producer who died in 2021 at 34, gets the spotlight on the moving “So I.” Instead of a sentimental paean, Charli interrogates her relationship with her friend and collaborator. “Would you like this one?” she wonders, “Maybe just a little bit?,” capturing the sense of unanswered questions that accompany grief.That’s not the only time “Brat” gets personal.
While those lyrics show a vulnerable side, Charli is hitting her peak as a proponent of party girl life and times. The bad tattoos and plastic Jesus Christ signs of “Everything is romantic” evoke the songs of Lana Del Rey, if she spent more time in Naples, Italy, than Naples, Florida. Lana is there again — this time in Charli’s Airpods —on “Mean Girls,” a hands-in-the-air anthem about a coquette with a “razor sharp tongue stuck to skinny cigarettes.
By the time the “Mortal Kombat” synths of “365” fade out, some listeners will be tempted to rewind “Brat” and play it from the top: Another full circle moment for a pop star who has embraced the cult classics — if not best sellers — on which she’s built her foundation.
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