So now what? How do you follow up the album that took you from indie darling whose biggest claim to fame was singing the hook on an Iggy Azalea track to being an instrumental force in the current Vice President’s election campaign? If you’re Charli XCX, the answer is simple: you make a version of “Brat” that could only be made after being thrust into the world of the ultra-famous.

On the surface, “Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat” looks like a victory lap, songs to play over the end credits for the movie that was “Brat Summer.” But once you dig a little deeper you’ll uncover an album about the deep isolation one feels at the top of the mountain and how fame troubles everyone to some degree when it reaches this level.

The best example comes with the remix to one of the most acclaimed tracks on the original album, “Sympathy is a knife.” On the original version, Charli airs her grievances with the competitive nature of pop music, especially among women in the industry. She declares, “Couldn’t even be her if [she] tried,” and while there has been speculation about who that proverbial “her” might be, it seemed to be a stand-in for any ultra famous woman in the industry that would draw comparisons to Charli. On “Brat and…,” we get our answer in the form of a feature from one of pop's brightest stars, Ariana Grande. No longer afraid of not being like her peers, Charli now sings with them, lamenting the microscope that they are all put under as megastars. It’s no secret why Ariana was tapped for this feature. She directly references some of her own personal drama through the line, “It’s a knife when they won’t believe you, why should you explain?” A clear reference to her breakup with her fiancé Dalton Gomez and subsequent relationship with “Wicked” co-star Ethan Slater. Many fans alleged that Grande started a relationship with Slater, knowing he had a wife and child.

Most, if not all, of the “Brat and…” features carry this level of intentionality. The tracklist tells its own story before the music even starts. From The 1975’s Matty Healy–who spent the last year under fire after becoming the latest Taylor Swift ex to Lorde and Billie Eilish, who were both thrust into the spotlight as teenagers and declared to be prodigies, the collaborations reflect deeper narratives of fame and its consequences.

Now “brat” is still an album with a central thesis of “partying away” these lonely feelings, and the remix album definitely doesn’t forget that philosophy. The highlight of these remixed party tracks is definitely “B2b featuring tinashe,” which serves as a raucous celebration of the two women who have come a long way since both featuring on Ty Dolla $ign’s “Drop that Kitty” nearly a decade ago.

One of the more unique tracks comes from fellow indie darling Caroline Polachek on the “Everything is romantic” remix. This song sidelines Charli on her own project, being one of the only tracks to begin with the featured artist rather than Charli herself. In fact, the only time we hear from Charli at all comes in a verse written to mirror a phone call between the two women. Otherwise, the song takes place fully from Polachek’s perspective as she tries to ease Charli’s growing anxieties of becoming disillusioned with her own fame.

But in terms of lyricism, no song on “Brat and…” comes close to matching “I think about it all the time featuring bon iver.” This is another song that flips the premise of the original and adds a new wrinkle. The original sees Charli grappling with the concept of motherhood and wanting to have a child being weighed against her desire to propel her career to the highest heights she can reach. On the remix, Charli’s fears have shifted from the idea that a baby would hold her back to the idea that she would not be able to care for a child the way a mother should because of  the all-consuming the level of fame she has achieved. This change is best illustrated in a very subtle shift in the closing lines of both songs. On the original Charli says, “‘Cause my career feels so small in the existential scheme of it all” to “‘Cause my career still feels small in the existential scheme of it all” showing that even after the unprecedented success she’s experienced, Charli still holds on to the same worries and fears that she did before.

Overall, “Brat and…” defies logic. No other pop star would make a remix album so radically different from the original; they would just toss a feature over the existing song in order to boost the original's streaming numbers while putting in as little effort as possible.

But doing that just wouldn’t be Charli. She is always at 150% and coasting now would be a disservice to the hardcore fans who supported the five albums that came before “brat” took over the world. So Charli stayed Charli and delivered a tracklist of friends, icons and everything in between because, at the end of the day, she’s our number one.