"Brat" - Charli XCX Trivia Quiz

Answer: Von Dutch

The first single to release from what would be revealed as Charli XCX's "Brat" album, "Von Dutch" showed up on the airwaves in February 2024, bringing in a heavy dance sound with more depth than Charli's earlier pop-friendly radio hits. A reintroduction of sorts for Charli, the track ushered in a new aesthetic for the UK artist, one which would define not only her image, but a general vibe for 2024.

Critically acclaimed, "Von Dutch" topped out at number twenty-six on the UK Singles Chart and featured a music video that had Charli singing and dancing her way through the airport and runways in Paris while being chased by the paparazzi.

The track received a quick, early remix in March 2024, specifically the "Von Dutch A. G. Cook Remix" featuring Addison Rae and it received a nomination for the Grammy for Best Remixed Recording.

Answer: 360

The first track on the "Brat" album, "360" became the disc's second single and perhaps its most famous. Although it contains a fairly simple beat compared to the rest of "Brat's" tracklist, its catchiness comes from its fast-paced lyrics, a number of which refer to other people and Charli's own life. The phrase "I'm so Julia" is specifically in reference to 'it girl' Julia Fox, a figure who featured prominently in the imagery and promotional follow-ups.

Nominated for Record of the Year and Best Music Video at the Grammy Awards, "360" hit number eleven on the UK Singles Chart and number two on the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart, becoming one of 2024's top dance songs. Its music video, which featured Charli alongside 'it girls' past and present (including Julia Fox, Chloe Sevigny, Rachel Sennott, and others), gained particular attention for its cast and imagery. Charli would go on to perform the track during her hosting/musical guest joint gig on "Saturday Night Live" in late 2024.

A remixed version of the track featured Robyn and Young Lean, who rerecorded the song with Charli in Stockholm. They re-released the song with their personalized lyrics in May 2024, a week before the official launch of the "Brat" album proper.

Answer: 365

The final track on "Brat" (before you get into the deluxe, added tracks, of course), "365" unironically turns the album around, providing both a revisit and a reversal of the opening song, "360", to close things out. While "360" was the minimalist single, "365" sped the track up, brought back the original hooks, but leaned harder into the "Brat" aesthetic of partying and raving, leading Charli deeper into the club beats and closing out with the most intense beats of the disc.

"365's" remix intensified the whole thing. Featuring Shygirl, it featured samples from UK hardcore electronic duo Altern 8's song "Frequency" which originally released in the early 1990s. That track, from their 1991 album "Full On... Mask Hysteria", was indicative of the techno rave stylings of the era, a clear influence and obvious precursor to the modern club beats of Charli's "Brat"-- a club classic, if you will.

Answer: Club Classics

Coming straight out of "360", "Club Classics" brings the listener into the beats they're going to come to expect through most of the "Brat" album. The song is a love letter from Charli to the club scene that acts, in its own way, as a club hit. It's not complex-- Charli wants to dance, and she pulls from the traditions of English rave music, club beats, hyperpop, and electroclash from start to finish in the disc.

The lyrics of this one reference a handful of people: "Yeah, I wanna dance to me, I wanna dance to A. G., I wanna dance with George, I wanna dance to SOPHIE." All of these people are real and have major influences on "Brat". A. G. refers to A. G. Cook, Charli's lead producer, SOPHIE was an influential dance musician and a major figure in Charli's life before her passing in 2021. George refers to George Daniel, drummer for The 1975, who Charli was engaged to shortly before the release of "Brat". He also had production credits on this track and the viral hit, "Apple".

The remixed version of this track completely overhauled the basic, frenetic beat of "Club Classics" and featured bb tricks as the guest contributor when it released in late 2024.

Answer: Girl, So Confusing

When "Girl, So Confusing" released as a single in June 2024, it wasn't hard for Charli XCX fans to link the lyrics to an odd interview Charli sat through in the early 2020s in which the interviewer thought she was New Zealand singer-songwriter Lorde. It led tabloids to develop an odd fascination with the two similar-looking artists and, in time, a weird rivalry that was never really justified.

"Girl, So Confusing", a song in which Charli sings the lyrics through heavy auto-tune with a consistent bass line, reached number twenty-eight on the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart. But the story didn't end there.

The remix for "Girl, So Confusing" turned out to be one of the most anticipated from the "Brat" remix album, "Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat", and Charli released it well in advance of that disc (the remix showed up in late June; the remix album launched in October 2024). Reaching out to Lorde directly, Lorde agreed to collaborate, sending Charli a text message containing her own verse for the track. It was added in verbatim.

The Lorde version of "Girl, So Confusing" effectively flipped the original message of the song on its head, creating a track less about dwelling in insecurity and more about empowerment through its acknowledgement. The track ends with the pair "working it out on the remix" and admitting their support for each other, putting an end to the rumours.

The remix topped out much higher than the original on the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart, reaching number three, and was cited by several music outlets as the top single of 2024.

Answer: Guess

In June 2024, Charli one-upped her "Brat" release with a Deluxe Edition, the simply-named "Brat and It's the Same but There's Three More Songs So It's Not", which saw the addition of rave banger "Guess", and the pop-tinged "Hello Goodbye" and "Spring Breakers". "Guess" turned out be the hit of the three, being the short-and-sweet club track spawning off the beat from Daft Punk's "Technologic".

The song, about guessing the colour of Charli's underwear, received further attention from two surprise sources, the first being musical artist Billie Eilish, who collaborated with Charli for the remixed version of the song on "Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat". While the original version of the song hit number sixteen on the Billboard US Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart, the remix hit number one and topped out the UK Singles Chart.

The music video, which featured both artists, brought the second surprise, especially since it was the only track from the remix album to get video treatment. In the video, Charli and Billie leave a house party before rolling around on a massive pile of women's panties in a parking lot nearby. All of the undergarments featured-- 10,000 of them-- were donated to women's charities.

Charli performed "Guess" (along with "Von Dutch") onstage at the 2025 Grammy Awards, bringing a rave to the event to close it out. The track was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. While it didn't win this Award, Charli took the statuettes for Best Dance Pop Recording, Best Dance/Electronic Album, and Best Recording Package at the ceremony.

Answer: Sympathy Is a Knife

Reaching number ten on the Billboard US Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart despite never releasing as an official single, "Sympathy Is a Knife" was one of Charli's more personal songs on the "Brat" album, examining her insecurities as an artist. While fans and media speculated that Charli wrote the song as a diss track against Taylor Swift, who she'd previously acted as an opening act for, Charli came out strongly against the claim.

Although the synth-pop styling of the original song is particularly catchy and memorable (leading Charli to perform it consistently since release, including on "Saturday Night Live"), the song took on a new life when it was remixed for "Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat" featuring Ariana Grande in the guest vocalist position. The revised track featured new arrangement and lyrics doubling down on Charli and Ariana's insecurities and, in light of the success of "Brat" and everything that came with it, found new context and growth in Charli's reimagining.

The remix hit number two on the Billboard US Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart after the album launched in October 2024. It peaked at number seven on the UK Singles Chart.

The track closes with distorted synth and vocals not completely unlike Charli's signature flourishes in her Mixtape EPs. If any track from the "Brat" era is indicative of her growth and evolution as an artist, it's this one.

Answer: Everything is Romantic

Perhaps the one track that seems like an odd one out on the "Brat" tracklist, "Everything is Romantic" flips between sweeping, melodramatic pop and dance banger as Charli recounts sights, sounds, and nostalgia from the Amalfi Coast. It's occasionally a silly track, lyrically, as Charli calls out:

"Lemons on the trees and on the ground
Sandals on the stirrups of the scooters
Neon orange drinks on the beach
Four generations make up a family"

The real twist is in the remix where long-time Charli collaborator Caroline Polachek recontextualizes the entire song, transforming it from a dance track to an introspective indie-pop song. Built as an honest conversation between Caroline and Charli where the latter questions her successes and life recording and developing the album in Tokyo while the former rebuilds the nostalgic lyrics about Italy into a realistic longing for East London's trappings, it's perhaps the most removed from the original track of everything on the disc, but somehow one of its most vulnerable moments.

"Late nights in black silk in East London
Church bells in the distance
Free bleeding in the autumn rain
Fall in love again and again"

As Caroline notes, "it's like you're living your dream, but not living your life." In the face of all things "Brat", "Everything is Romantic" manages to start as the most superficial track and, in the end, become the most raw and human of all of them.

Answer: Talk Talk

One of the middle-of-the-album dance tracks from "Brat", "Talk Talk" doesn't break the mold in terms of its style, and while it was never released as a single from the original disc, it found its success in due time.

With the announcement of "Brat and It's Completely Different but Also Still Brat", Charli rereleased the remixed version of "Talk Talk" with Australian pop-dance artist Troye Sivan as the contributing musician. What resulted was a playful, sexy, upbeat reimagining of the original track, and the first indication of what the pair's joint-tour would feature.

Troye and Charli would go on to create the 'Sweat' Tour, launching it in September 2024 and travelling the U.S. and Canada with a shared setlist that would, occasionally, feature guest artists like Lorde, Addison Rae, Billie Eilish, and Kesha, all of whom also featured on Charli's remix album. The tour was extremely dance-heavy, featuring the simple rave aesthetics of "Brat" melded with the choreo-heavy dance stylings of Sivan's "Something to Give Each Other" album.

The encore, at the end of each setlist, turned out to be the remixed "Talk Talk". It peaked at number five on the Billboard US Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart.

Answer: Apple

The third official single from "Brat" and perhaps its poppiest, "Apple" went viral due in part to its featuring on TikTok, spreading its influence through an easy-to-replicate dance created by influencer Kelley Heyer (and magnified by Charli and Troye Sivan in advance of their tour). Interestingly, Heyer would appear at at least one of the 'Sweat' Tour stops, performing the "Apple" dance on the stage's big screen when it appeared in the setlist.

"Apple" would make it to number two on the Billboard US Hot Dance/Electronic Songs Chart and number eight on the UK Singles Chart when it officially released as a single in August 2024, deep into
'Brat Summer'. It would also be nominated for the Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance.

The remixed version of the song, which pulled the track out of the bubblegum dance-pop sphere and into indie dream-pop, featured UK musician The Japanese House in the driver's seat.