Album Review // Charli xcx // Wuthering Heights
3.5/5 stars
By the end of 2024, Charli xcx was ready to free herself from BRAT – her critical and commercial smash that came to define that year's summer for many in popular culture. As end-of-year lists and awards nominations began rolling in, Charli was contacted by filmmaker Emerald Fennell in the mindset of formulating her forthcoming adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. While the director requested a singular track, the pop star relished the opportunity and offered a full tie-in project instead. Looking at this album outside of the context of Fennell's controversial adaptation, Charli xcx's Wuthering Heights is the welcome sonic departure that the artist needed post-BRAT. Opposed to BRAT's focus on dance and club music, Wuthering Heights is a dizzying array of sprawling orchestral strings and heartfelt melodies, carrying with it a profound understanding of Brontë's prose. The theme of finding oneself through romantic and platonic connections is channeled through Charli, as it was with Cathy in the 1847 literary classic. Much of this search for identity correlates with the pop star's real-life experiences, marrying her longtime partner George Daniel (of The 1975) in July 2025. This milestone, in turn, is indicative of the project's greater contemplative qualities. Where BRAT felt like escapism, Wuthering Heights feels like facing one's emotions head-on. While a massive departure from her 2024 smash hit, Wuthering Heights is Charli at her most emotional and experimental – truly an engaging middle ground for the literary truthers and film defenders.
