In 2024, the ever-evolving Charli XCX rose into iconic, era-defining stardom with her album Brat. The party-girl, smoker, bright aesthetic took over the summer and our listening. Charli XCX’s recent album release Wuthering Heights acts as both a soundtrack to Emerald Fennel’s controversial screenplay as well as its own entity. With this new project, XCX clearly took a creative leap in the other direction. Charli stated that she craved a “move in a completely polar opposite direction”. The neon turned to grey, and though the colour may have seeped out of her visuals, it definitely did not leave her music. The entirety of the album is a massive creative turn from the iconic Brat Summer, and yet works so well.
The opening song “House”, released as the first single, features the Welsh artist John Cale from Garnant, Carmarthenshire. Listeners are immediately made aware that this album will not be the same as XCX’s previous work. The spokenword introduction mirrors the opening of the novel, when Cale narrates as Nelly and Lockwood did in Brontë’s original work. The creepy, eerie atmosphere is present throughout the album and is haunted by the feverish violin first introduced in “House”. This single saw 675,800 streams in its first day of release, and quickly became an internet meme, with hundreds of thousands of videos using the song having been made on TikTok. Many videos online have been made stating that listeners can no longer take the song seriously due to the humour surrounding it online. Despite the outside noise, “House” serves as an incredibly good gothic narrative, setting the tone for the rest of the album.
As the album continues, the strings are never left behind. The standout song, and where Charli’s range as a vocalist and lyricist shines, is in the song “Altar”. The lyrics state “I must only be one” repeatedly, and as the song continues the backing track slowly exits and leaves her voice alone. This reinforces the loneliness and dark features of the screenplay/novel.
Although Charli XCX’s source material for the album was Emerald Fenell’s script for the movie, the album is arguably a more faithful adaptation of Brontë’s work than Fenell’s. XCX captures the atmosphere of the moors, Cathy and Heathcliff’s doomed and destructive love, as well as its haunting, gothic features.
This is seen specifically in “Dying for You” where rave-like beat meets droning strings. The lyrics “but then I kissed your lips and realised I was dying for you” could be XCX representing Heathcliff kissing Catherine in the books, and soon after follows her death. “Chains of love” also features the deep obsession Catherine and Heathcliff have for one another, and the song presents their co-dependent relationship well—they are stuck.
Possibly the most obvious moment of inspiration from the screenplay/novel is found in “Seeing Things” as XCX writes “You’re a ghost now, maybe a reflection / In fact, I’m certain I just saw you in the window”. The song follows a sense of insanity presenting itself in the hyper and harsh strings. By the end of the song, Charli XCX’s voice is digitalised, further blurring the lines between reality and imagination.
Overall, the transition from Brat Summer to gothic winter worked incredibly well for Charli XCX, as the album serves as a well written, developed album with a deep connection to its source material. Many even consider Emerald Fennel’s adaptation to be a music video for Charli XCX’s album due to controversy surrounding the film. The final song, “Funny Mouth” adds flickers of hope, as the droning strings that had been haunting the album—as Catherine haunted Heathcliff—slowly weakens.