Brat Summer (RIP) has just enough gas left in the tank to send Billie Eilish crashing through the fourth wall. She’s the latest celebrity guest to appear beside Charli XCX on this new remix of “Guess,” a weird noodle of an electroclash track about how annoying it is when everyone’s up in your business, but make it flirty. Eilish makes it even flirtier: Riding the high of her sapphic crush song “Lunch,” she’s got panties on the brain and whispery seduction in her voice. The underwear-flinging video racked up two million views overnight.
Both remix and original Brat and it’s the same but there’s three more songs so it’s not bonus track are produced by Harrison Patrick Smith, aka the Dare, who layers a little extra bass under Eilish’s part, as if she’s just spotted the girl she likes and her heart’s pounding. The aura of realism and allusion to the singers’ real-life texts means “Guess featuring Billie Eilish” plays out in the casually self-referential style of BRAT and particularly “The girl so confusing remix with lorde,” which unpacked feelings of mutual admiration and envy. In “Guess” we get a peek at a much more amusing source of hidden tension between besties: the kind where it’s all love, but one of them is straight so it’s not. Honestly it’s an under-appreciated subject! Charli’s part on the remix is not much changed but Brat-ified Billie is worth extending summer one more day.