Are brats annoying? Cool? Jaded? Perhaps they’re just misunderstood? But honestly, who cares? Charli XCX’s newest album, Brat, isn’t trying to put brats like her in a box — she just wants to put her hands up and dance to club classics with her best friends.

Brat is 15 songs of intoxicating, energizing, dancing bliss. Charli XCX’s singles “360,” “Club Classics” and “Von Dutch” are the perfect party precursors to an album that DJs will remix in Brooklyn warehouses for years to come. 

Brat is nothing if not honest. With songs like “Sympathy is a Knife” and “I Think About it All the Time,” Charli unleashes her fears and contemplations. She addresses her incessant comparing of herself to other artists and her need to outdo herself at every new project. She talks about feeling like a loser in her ripped tights on a lawn chair in the track “I May Say Something Stupid.” 

Every lyric is just as much specific as it is relatable, but even her most vulnerable lyrics are encased in heavy dance production making it the perfect Party Anthem

Charli XCX doesn’t have Taylor Swift’s pop “it girl” appeal — she’s far too honest for that. Instead, she has found a place in pop by doing what so many pop girls fail to do — release loud, fun music that is simultaneously intimate and original. 

Above all, Brat encapsulates what Charli does best, which is capture the heartbreakingly beautiful, empty and wild noises of partying.