Charli XCX has explicitly said that “Mean girls” is inspired by Dasha Nekrasova, the edgelord podcaster. If you’re not part of a particular social circle, either in New York or in the online media, then you probably have no idea who that is. If you do know, then maybe you’re sick of reading her name. It doesn’t matter. “Mean girls” has attraction and aggravation and repulsion built into it, and it could be about any of the mean girls that Charli describes in the lyrics. It’s an overdriven in-the-red face-crusher with ultra-distorted Ed Banger synths in the red and an extremely strange jazz-piano breakdown that makes perfect sense in context. The context isn’t really important. What’s important is the sheer physical pulse of the music and the feeling that you might really like to be one of those mean girls when you hear the song. —Tom

One of my closest hometown friends, who I’ve known since the sixth grade, had a baby two weeks ago. For two people who spent so many of our formative years attached at the hip, our lifestyles differ immensely: She has a husband and owns a house with a pool in the suburbs. I share my Brooklyn apartment with a roommate I met online. Photos of my friend holding her newborn look so natural; she was meant for this. Am I meant for this?

There’s been a lot of great media dissecting the experience of deciding whether or not to become a mother, but none of it seems to cut to the chase quite like “I think about it all the time.” Here’s Charli XCX: a successful woman with a successful fiancé, who doesn’t go home to sleep because she’s busy dancing to her own music. She seems to have it all – but can you have it all at the expense of what you’ve been told is life’s greatest joy? Can life’s greatest joy be truly joyful at the expense of your freedom? Charli doesn’t know. None of us know. And we’ll all be thinking about it all the time. —Abby

The magic of Brat is that it works on multiple levels. The songs are hyper-specific examinations of feelings that are often dark and insecure, and they’re also all-out club bangers. “Talk talk” might be the most perfect combination of those two tendencies. Charli worries and squirms about an unspoken connection with someone else. She wonders what they’re thinking, how they feel about her, whether that connection is real. But with its hyper-repetitive singalong chorus and its hard-slamming A. G. Cook/Hudson Mohawke house beat, “Talk talk” is also a euphoric hands-in-the-air experience, a song that feels vast and universal. That combination should be unthinkable, impossible, but Charli pulls it off again and again. —Tom

Is this song about Lorde? Marina Diamandis? Rina Sawayama? I don’t know, but it slaps either way (probably Lorde though right?). A lot of Brat promo intimated that the album would be party anthems, and about 90% of it is. But “Girl, so confusing” is a party anthem with a story, a relatable, timeless tale about the complexity of female friendships. It’s a universal topic, further complicated by the mess of fame and made all the more entertaining by this guessing game that scandalous autofiction brings about, where each line is layered with both meaning and clues. When my friend and I were discussing it for the first time, my friend was laughing at its absurdity, and so was I: “literally could’ve been a text,” I said. But I’m glad it’s a banger instead. It is confusing being a girl, and “You’re all about writing poems/ But I’m about throwing parties/ Think you should come to my party/ And put your hands up” are amazing lyrics. —Danielle

It’s been a recurring theme in these blurbs: Tabloid intrigue courses through “Sympathy is a knife,” yet the song hits hard whether or not you’re familiar with the backstory. “Don’t wanna see her backstage at my boyfriend’s show/ Fingers crossed behind my back/ I hope they break up quick.” Who could Charli XCX be singing about there? Hmmmm. Unlike the latest album from the song’s presumed subject, when you slide the lore to the side, the music holds up big time.

Take a moment to appreciate this track’s aggro synthpop splendor. “Sympathy is a knife” is a marvel of composition (that chorus hook!), production (those weaponized blocky synths!), and performance (no amount of Auto-Tune could hide the mix of fragility and frantic distress in Charli’s voice). This is a tune about frenemies, anxiety, and self-doubt that converts all its nervous energy into a flailing cyborg powerhouse, funneling years of pop experiments into a gleaming, booming alt-pop masterclass. Zoom out, and it’s one more triumph on an album full of triumphs that feels like an exclamation point on a career full of them. —Chris