Charli XCX is no stranger to the movies. Before her post-Brat pivot to the big screen that\u2019s seen her team up with arthouse heroes like Gregg Araki and Takashi Miike \u2014 and not to mention co-creating and starring in a film of her own \u2014 Charli has dotted her professional career with sugary, on-the-nose soundtrack contributions: \u201cI\u2019m going skiing even when the slopes are closed,\u201d she winked during the rolling end credits of 2022\u2019s slasher comedy Bodies Bodies Bodies. The following year, she made \u201cSpeed Drive\u201d for Greta Gerwig\u2019s Barbie and co-wrote the music for the coming-of-age teen comedy Bottoms. Just don\u2019t get her started on \u201cBoom Clap.\u201d<\/p>\n
Charli\u2019s first record after summer 2024\u2019s zeitgeist-defining Brat is Wuthering Heights, released over Valentine\u2019s Day weekend in conjunction with Emerald Fennell\u2019s film of the same title. One of dozens of screen adaptations of Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s 1847 novel \u2014 the only novel the English writer published before dying a year later \u2014 Fennell\u2019s take is, frankly, a disjointed mess (light spoilers ahead). It\u2019s too hasty to be the erotic thriller that Saltburn fans expected, its humor is too faint even for a black comedy, and it\u2019s too aesthetically underdeveloped to leave any lasting visual impact. I think Fennell wanted to reimagine Wuthering Heights in the vein of Sofia Coppola\u2019s Marie Antoinette or Baz Luhrmann\u2019s Romeo + Juliet, both thrilling films that toy with contemporary context while remaining faithful to their source material. You have to have a razor-sharp creative point of view in order to pull off that balance. You might have to be someone like Charli XCX.<\/p>\n
In the winter that followed Brat Summer, Emerald Fennell reached out to Charli about doing original songs for Wuthering Heights. Charli, understandably overwhelmed thinking about what sort of musical direction she\u2019d take after Brat, said yes. \u201cI think whatever I do next will just inherently be different to Brat because that\u2019s what feels natural,\u201d she said on the Goop podcast last November. \u201cI\u2019m exploring a lot of stuff with strings at the moment, which I\u2019m really enjoying, and I haven\u2019t really worked in that space before.\u201d That same week, Charli released Wuthering Heights\u2019 lead single \u201cHouse<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHouse,\u201d one of the album\u2019s strongest moments, backdrops the film\u2019s opening scene and has already had its 15 minutes of viral TikTok fame thanks to its brash, foreboding opening lines: \u201cI think I\u2019m gonna die in this house,\u201d Charli repeats in unison with the Velvet Underground\u2019s John Cale, who gives a subtly-theatrical spoken word introduction over plunky, screeching strings that wouldn\u2019t feel out of place on Lingua Ignota\u2019s Sinner Get Ready. Before the track’s end, though, we\u2019re reminded that this is the same artist behind Brat: Charli\u2019s vocals are distorted into oblivion, and we start to hear the production fingerprints of her frequent collaborator Finn Keane (aka Easyfun) poke through in punchy, programmed percussion.<\/p>\n At some point after Fennell asked Charli to contribute music to Wuthering Heights, Charli raised that request and inquired about making a full-length concept album. From a creator\u2019s standpoint, it\u2019s a brilliant way to follow up Brat. Its ambiguous association with the film invokes inherently lower stakes, but defining it as a \u201cconcept album\u201d still grants Charli a considerable amount of creative freedom that a proper soundtrack album might restrict. Most of what we hear in the film Wuthering Heights, for instance, isn\u2019t Charli\u2019s songs but Anthony Willis\u2019 string-laden score.\u00a0<\/p>\n