"I'm famous, but not quite," says Charli XCX on her 10th album. The admission is as bold, blunt, challenging and vulnerable as the album on which it appears. Brat is a hedonistic, ultraviolet collection of songs whose thumping - slightly disorienting - club beats more than succeed in their aim of “capturing a feeling of chaos”. Over thudding bass lines, you can imagine glasses of vodka and coke shuddering on the bar – imagine Jurassic Park, but the T rex is a subwoofer.
Across the album, the artist born Charlotte Aitchison blurts out the contradictions of relishing her cool status as a “cult classic” while still fretting over her weight and whether she “deserves commercial success” – all the while, sharply aware that it means little in the grand scheme of things.
Denne historien er fra June 07, 2024-utgaven av The Independent.
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Denne historien er fra June 07, 2024-utgaven av The Independent.
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Djokovic faces monumental task at the Australian Open
Novak Djokovic could play Carlos Alcaraz in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open and may also have to face world No 2 Alexander Zverev and world No 1 Jannik Sinner if he is to win a 25th grand slam title in Melbourne.
Potter's West Ham gamble is a make-or-break moment
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After more than a century in the lower tiers, League Two side Bromley FC are finally in the spotlight with their FA Cup tie
Ambitious Everton look for upgrade on the Dyche grind
Sean Dyche was never the manager Everton really wanted.
Everton ease to FA Cup win as team reboot starts
They are not used to cheering the men in the technical area.
THE ART OF NOISE
Alt-popper Ethel Cain lashes listeners with sound on her experimental second LP, 'Perverts'. Helen Brown submits
Kidman is utterly fearless in unabashedly sexy 'Babygirl'
Dutch writer-director Halina Reijn has made a BDSM film rife with fumbling uncertainty, and comedy-drama 'A Real Pain' manages to stay honest,
The secret shame that saw Callas retreat into obscurity
She was the opera diva with a tumultuous and tragic private life but something else would derail her career as one of the greatest singers of all time, as Meghan Lloyd Davies explains
At home with Gen Zzzzz
Being boring has never been more in - but Kate Rossiensky wonders if the humblebore lifestyle is a deflection technique
PLAYING DUMB
As the thoroughly decent (and rather smart) Kasim is ejected from 'The Traitors', Helen Coffey asks whether intelligence has become a hindrance that should be concealed at all costs
