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New Music Friday – June 7, 2024

It’s the first New Music Friday of June. An instant classic was born this week and it came from Charli XCX. This week her new record gets the spotlight treatment. Read on to see new releases from artists like Big Time Rush, Gracie Abrams and KAYTRANADA that are also worth a listen.

The Best of New Music Friday:

Charli XCX – BRAT

Charli XCX is not putting out dance music for people who flock to the most notorious downtown venues. The boldness on her sixth studio album BRAT is for people who send Instagram DM’s of upcoming underground dance shows to their best friends. Not to set a precedent, but it might be the best dance album this decade.

The sounds on BRAT are an amplified and highly publicized release for people who understand that the best nights out aren’t spent buying liquor and trying to leave with strangers. Charli XCX would rather people come to the discotheque to dance and dance only. In fact, BRAT is a callback to the illegal underground London raves where she kickstarted her career as a 15-year-old. Now 31, Charli’s music isn’t only a tribute to the scene that raised her. Her sound also supports the future of dance music. BRAT uses flashbacks as an influence, but it pushes the genre forward.

Everyone can be a DJ these days and that’s great. Anyone can make music, anyone can make their friends dance at a house party. But in a day and age where sync buttons are pressed on 133 BPM tracks with seven layers and zero volume controls, Charli XCX forces everyone to move their bodies with as few layers as possible.

The beeping tones on BRAT’s tracks are so quick that they provide their own beat without adding unnecessary percussion to compensate. Take the single “360.” The song starts with a synthy rhythm. It’ll make many people dance from the second it starts. It’s not until eight seconds into the track that a minimal drum loop enters. It’s also when Charli begins singing. “I went on my own way and I made it,” she says with an empowering attitude. These three layers of synth, vocals and beats are all this song has to it. They make sense together. BRAT is never overly complicated.

Charli is innovating by doing less. She’s working smarter, not harder.

That sentiment shows through on BRAT’s slowest track, “I might say something stupid.” A piano with no more than three or four notes drags along while Charli sings with a hyper-autotuned vocal track. There’s a produced electronic wind effect underneath her voice and the keys, giving a surreal and futuristic feel. Again, only a few musical elements are needed to bring BRAT alive.

Then there are the club-thumping songs on BRAT. Thank god for laser-focused tracks like “B2b.” The intensity of the loud four-on-the-floor beat is matched with Charli’s hypnotic words, “I don’t want to go back, back, to back to back to back to back to you.” The downbeat on her consonant pronunciations (that’s the “ck” sound in “back”) serves as an extra oomph on the beat. The sweet high pitch she crawls the word “you” into is a dance-pop dream. “B2b” was made to be a club song, and it’s not even the clubbiest Charli gets.

BRAT’s second track “Club classics” has all the utilities in an excellent DJ’s toolbox. Dub, remixed vocals and lyrics about dancing are just a few examples heard here. Then there’s her confidence. Oh dear, the confidence. Charli knocks the fourth wall down hard on “Club classics.” “I wanna dance with George,” she touts in reference to her boyfriend and 1975 drummer George Daniel. “I wanna dance to SOPHIE,” she raps about her late friend and frequent collaborator SOPHIE, who died in early 2021. “Yeah, I wanna dance to me,” Charli determines.

Hot damn, the confidence and nerve on Charli is infectious. It brings a spicy, bratty attitude out of every listener. That’s the spirit dance fans and ravers need. Each listener at the club will also want to dance to Charli and her best record to date.

New Music Friday Top Picks:

Big Time Rush – “Only One”

Cola – “Pulling Quotes”

Fat Dog – “I am the King”

Goat Girl – Below The Waste

Gracie Abrams – “Close To You”

KAYTRANADA – Timeless

Peggy Gou – I Hear You

Sabrina Carpenter – “Please Please Please”

Which of these tracks from New Music Friday will you add to your favorite playlists today? Any we missed? Let us know in the comments or on Instagram!

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Ben Pagani

Music Projects Manager at Beyond The Stage Magazine

Ben is a music journalist living and working in Chicago. They joined Beyond The Stage as an intern and have stayed on the staff for several years. Now serving on the editorial board, Ben is proud to be BTS' Music Projects Manager, coordinating coverage between international record labels and our staff. Ben has interviewed, photographed and written about bands from across the world. Ben has lived all over the United States working in television and media. They are an Emmy Award-winning writer. Ben can be found spinning records as 'DJ Wearing Sunglasses' in clubs and basements across the US.