With her sixth album, Charli XCX transcends all narratives and delivers a hit. BRAT is imperious and cool, nuanced and vulnerable, and one of the best pop albums of the year.

Meanwhile, Charli XCX has been dreaming of a time when the It Girls were hot messes, flashing the paparazzi as they tumbled from the Chateau or looking feral outside Les Deux at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday. The Bimbo Summit’s on her mood board, as are the neon-splattered club nights of the mid- to late-2000s, back when dance music was in its bedroom-producer phase and pop singers were still divas who’d never condescend that they were anything like you. It’s a vibe that’s rather popular as of late. (Oh, to be a creative director tasked with explaining “indie sleaze” to Camila Cabello.) But Charli lived it, albeit as an English teenager whose MySpace demos had titles like “Art Bitch,” raging vicariously through the blogosphere.

— Pitchfork