There are at least 32 film adaptations of Emily Brontë’s sole novel, but Charli XCX is the first artist to release an album called Wuthering Heights. The first solo artist, at least – in 1992, a musical version by Bernard J. Taylor was recorded as a concept album by an ensemble, following two operatic adaptations, by Bernard Herrmann and Carlisle Floyd, in the 1950s. But at least since Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’, the prospect of musically reimagining the story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff – if you want to reduce it to that – must have been all too daunting. Not for Charli XCX, who, after reading Emerald Fennell’s screenplay and being asked to contribute an original song for her inevitably steamy adaptation, decided to do a full album – not a soundtrack, certainly not a score dotted with a couple of pop songs, but a conceptual record attempting to match the infernal yearning Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi arguably bring to the screen. It does – makes it more convincing, even – but the album is so front-loaded it eventually stops sounding like a passion project, which is worse than having it tumble into madness.
1. House [feat. John Cale]
The album’s identity sometimes feels torn between a Charli XCX concept album and a companion to Emerald Fennell’s film – both inspired by, or, if we’re being generous, loosely adapting Emily Brontë’s novel – but the opening track splits the difference in stark, galvanizing fashion. Its screeching violins and vigorous percussion really kick the film’s brooding atmosphere into gear, the already-viral repetition of “I think I’m gonna die in this house” contextualized by one of child Cathy’s first lines. It’s John Cale’s spoken word, though, that lends the song its otherworldly, elusive brilliance, the kind of poetry that can be projected upon different characters in the story and beyond. Rather than reducing it to a haunting introduction, Charli realizes the song’s climactic potential and dips every bit of it in distortion, ensuring there’s nothing subtle about – but plenty of nuance in – its foreshadowing.
2. Wall of Sound
The tone of Charli’s art-pop becomes less gothic and more orchestral as her lyrics swirl in a desire she calls “monolithic.” Stripped of context or visuals, and as just the second track on the album, she hardly sells us on the “unbelievable tension” in question, which is clearly spelled out but felt merely at its surface. Most compelling is Charli’s performance: she grips the melody as if her lungs depend on it, accentuating the lines, “You’re what keeps me breathing/ Keeps my heart beating.” Could be him or the wall of sound itself.
3. Dying for You
Wuthering Heights’ jewel of a pop song isn’t even a single. Charli is quick to prove that her deployment of strings can be more than moody, effectively replacing synths to shed light on the doomed romance at the story’s core. But the reason the song transcends its source material is that all the pain and torture our protagonist endures is irrelevant to its enjoyment; its gory lines wouldn’t sound out of place in a coffee shop, which speaks to the infectious energy Charli cooked up with longtime collaborators Finn Keane (aka Easyfun) and Justin Raisen.
4. Always Everywhere
More memorable than ‘Wall of Sound’, the similarly string-laden ‘Always Everywhere’ seems to take up more space in the film, and for good reason. It captures the unbelievable tension more than just declaring it, amplifying its pervasive, feverish qualities. “I feel like home, still, you pull away,” she sings, “You disappear to somewhere dark, so far away.” The word home carries so much more weight here after basically being torn to paces after she calls it house; the storm is as inescapable as it is inextricable from it.
5. Chains of Love
‘Chains of Love’ was a strong single and follow-up to ‘House’, clarifying Charli’s pop intentions in a punchy, cinematic format that fit the film’s trailer. But as the centerpiece of the album, it regurgitates the same motifs – being a prisoner of love, bleeding for the sake of it, unable to let go – in a way that starts to become wearisome, even if Charli’s soaring vocals remain fervent and captivating. Can she keep its insistent passion from becoming repetitive, as it does in the film, or will she transform it in the second half?
6. Out of Myself
The next song does introduce some fresh elements to the album – a physicality that’s so far mostly been absent, bolstered by Easyfun’s skittering beats and stabbing synths, sounding as much like “fingers gripping on floorboards” as any string instrument. Unlike ‘Dying for You’, lines like “Please rub the salt in my wounds” are more likely to catch the unassuming listener off guard, adding a bit of nerve to the record where it’s needed.
7. Open up
An interlude seems redundant when Anthony Willis’ score does a solid job filling the gaps of Charli’s songs, and ‘Open up’ blurs the line between the two without adding much substance to the album.
8. Seeing Things
By this point, it’s clear Charli is running out of ideas; the tension in ‘Seeing Things’ is hardly believable, a hollow attempt at incorporating the ghostliness of the album’s namesake. Also, I hate to lend credence to one of Taylor Swift’s worst songs by referencing one of her best, but isn’t there a little too much ‘Death by a Thousand Cuts’ in its piano line, a little too much “I look through the windows of this love” in its “I’m certain I just saw you in a window”? Maybe I’m just hearing things.
9. Altar
Further proof that at some point after Charli decided to contribute a whole album and not just a song to the film, the concept had to be stretched thin. ‘Altar’ is another less memorable song in the album’s latter half, airy and prayerful without the desperation or urgency to back it up. It’s sung in the present tense but sounds more like a ghost of itself.
10. Eyes of the World [feat. Sky Ferreira]
Hearing Sky Ferreira’s voice is enough to pique the listener’s attention again, and it helps that the song itself also revs up the intensity. Gothic, explosive, and optimistic in all the right ways, ‘Eyes of the World’ benefits most of all from the singers’ vocal interplay, Ferreira the dizzying shadow to Charli’s sincerity: “I let the fire rush straight through my head/ Sabotage to prove I meant what I said.” Since Ferreira is free now, the “Set me free” chorus feels especially apt.
11. My Reminder
Despite a decent enough chorus, ‘My Reminder’ is bogged down by a stale beat and some of the album’s clunkiest lyrics, which seem to suggest this song is aimed at Cathy’s father, not Heathcliff: “This competition and this tension so strong/ A blood relation that I can’t outrun,” she sings, sounding like she’s way past it.
12. Funny Mouth
Wuthering Heights sort of comes full circle with ‘Funny Mouth’, ending the album almost as strangely as it begins. Co-written with Joe Keery, the track swells with a more complicated tension than most of the album, building up without overstaying its welcome. “Everyone sleeps/ And everyone wakes up,” Charli repeats on the outro, underlining the cyclical nature of a record that’s certainly not meant to be revisited in full the way her proper records are. But that’s almost certainly the point: creating a stopgap release more epic and culturally significant than many before it, even if it’s not remembered for every single song. “If there’s a light, don’t let it go out,” she sings, a line all the more potent if you allow it to be seen as a little meta. Everyone sleeps, but considering the pace of Charli XCX’s career, you gotta wonder.
