CHARLI XCX: Wuthering Heights (Atlantic)
VERDICT: Great album – but totally different to Brat!
FOUR STARS
Charli XCX’s 2024 album, Brat, draws inspiration from the energetic dance music of the late 90s and early 2000s, revealing a fun and carefree side of the artist.
The album, which won a BRIT Award, became hugely popular online thanks to its bright green cover. Its catchy songs were everywhere that summer, defining the season for many.
Charlotte Aitchison, known as the singer, is releasing a new album inspired by the film adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The album promises a darker, moodier sound for the spring season.
She’s one of the UK’s most daring popular musicians, constantly blending accessible pop with more experimental sounds – and you can hear both sides of her artistry in this work.
Now that summer is over, Charli is focusing on acting. She’s appearing in a new documentary called ‘The Moment,’ which playfully examines the world of fame, and also has small roles in several independent films, alongside her work on ‘Wuthering Heights’.
When Fennell asked her to write a single song for her new movie, the artist surprised her by delivering a full album instead.
Charli XCX’s cover of ‘Wuthering Heights’—created with frequent partner Finn Keane and featuring contributions from Velvet Underground’s John Cale and pop artist Sky Ferreira—is quite different from her previous work, ‘Brat’.
The singer, who was born in Cambridge, has compared the sound to the 1980s electronic style of her first album, True Romance, but this similarity is only noticeable briefly.
The first two songs successfully create a gloomy atmosphere, reminiscent of the rugged and windy Yorkshire moors. “House,” featuring the raspy, spoken-word vocals of 83-year-old Cale, concludes with Charli singing about a feeling of impending doom. “Wall Of Sound” pushes Charli’s experimental side even further.
On her album, Always Everywhere, she sings, ‘Your name is carved where the wild winds have gone,’ a line that’s powerfully underscored by a blend of orchestral strings and dreamy synthesizers, creating a feeling of tragic love. The singer Sky Ferreira, who collaborated with Charli on her 2019 song ‘Cross You Out,’ adds an ethereal quality to the melancholic ballad ‘Eyes Of The World’.
Charli could have easily made this album sound overly artistic and experimental, but she wisely avoided that. Instead, songs like “Dying For You,” “Chains Of Love,” and “My Reminder” feel similar to her earlier, more straightforward pop music, even though the lyrics explore heavier themes. For example, in “Dying For You,” she reflects that she now understands all the difficult experiences she’s been through.
Charli XCX’s song, “Wuthering Heights,” is a fantastic piece of music, clearly influenced by the passionate relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff as portrayed by Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the movie. It’s so good, it’s likely to be nominated for awards next year.
But it also works well as a stand-alone album – totally different to Brat, but a worthy successor.
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2026-02-13 20:33