Charli XCX gives a fan the tracklist for Brat remix album to post online: ‘Next level marketing’

Oh Charli XCX, the genius that you are. At The Sweat Tour, Charli XCX gave a lucky fan the Brat remix tracklist for the upcoming album, with strict instructions to share it online. 

At the Orlando, Florida stop of the dual-headlining show The Sweat Tour with Troye Sivan on 6 October, the “360” hitmaker said she “can’t even remember” the name of her upcoming album Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat. And that was only the start of the frankly iconic fan interaction she had on stage.

The “Brat Summer” trendsetter went on to hold up a crumpled piece of paper which included “the track list with all the features”. She addressed the audience: “I need somebody to take a picture of it, and put it online after the show.”

“Are you going to do it?”, she asked one lucky audience-goer. “Don’t rip it! Make sure someone gets it.” Erm, no pressure. 

Thankfully, the tracklist has indeed seen the light of day, and the songs attributed to the featured artists have been confirmed. Ariana Grande will join the singer on “Sympathy is a Knife”, The 1975 and Jon Hopkins will appear on “I Might Say Something Stupid” and Tinashe on “B2b”, as well as many more.

Onlookers have dubbed the user-generated content strategy for the upcoming album as “next-level marketing”. One fan wrote: “god this is the most iconic way to advertise.”

Another fan joked that the scenario could be akin to “when God gave the 10 commandments to humanity”. A different fan said: “Core memory for whoever got that paper.”

It’s not the first time that the “Apple” singer managed to drum up excitement without making a formal announcement for the upcoming project. Charli announced the featured artists via a series of cryptic lime green billboards, which recently popped up in cities in the US. 

The new 16-song edition will see five previously released remixes of tracks from the original release, including “360” featuring Robyn and Lung Lean, “Von Dutch” featuring Addison Rae, the beef-quashing “Girl, So Confusing” featuring Lorde, the panty-dropping “Guess” featuring Billie Eilish, and “Talk Talk” featuring Sweat Tour co-star Sivan and Dua Lipa speaking some Spanish and French. A.G. Cook collaborated with the star across the album.

Also featuring on the album will be Julian Casablancas, BB Trickz, Bon Iver, Bladee, the Japanese House, Shygirl, Jon Hopkins and Caroline Polachek. 

The new edition is already available to pre-save on Spotify, and shows the track list, which contains 11 further mystery songs and the standard 18 from the previous deluxe edition; Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not.

Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat will be available to stream on 11 October.

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• May 11

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