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Bye-bye Brat Summer. Welcome, Wuthering Heights.
As the clock struck midnight, Charli xcx dropped her seventh and latest studio album Wuthering Heights (via Atlantic Records), written, of course, for Emerald Fennell’s dramatic feature film of the same name.
Spanning 12 tracks, “Wuthering Heights” houses the previously released “Wall Of Sound,” “Chains Of Love” and the striking opener “House,” featuring Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale. Also, Sky Ferreira guests on album track “Eyes of the World,” which samples Wolf Alice’s excellent “Don’t Delete The Kisses.”
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Charli came on board the project when she got the call from Fennell at Christmas 2024. “I read the script and immediately felt inspired so Finn Keane and I began working on not just one but many songs that we felt connected to the world she was creating,” she explains in a press release announcing the project. “After being so in the depths of my previous album I was excited to escape into something entirely new, entirely opposite.”
That previous album was 2024’s BRAT, which peaked at No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart and ARIA Chart, and bowed at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, for her highest debut in the United States. BRAT was more than a record, or a chart placement. It was a cultural moment, a seemingly inescapable meme that the Collins Dictionary dubbed its word of the year for 2024.
Charli is on fire right now, and not just in the recording space. Later this month, she’ll star in A24’s The Moment, based on her original idea and the first co-production from her new studio365 venture. Also, she’ll appear in Daniel Goldhaber’s remake of the 1978 cult horror Faces of Death, Greg Araki’s erotic thriller I Want Your Sex, Cathy Yan’s independent film The Gallerist, Julia Jackman’s period fantasy 100 Nights Of Hero, Romain Gavras’ satirical action Sacrifice and Pete Ohs’ intimate drama Erupcja.
The Wuthering Heights feature film, based on Emily Bronte’s masterpiece of Gothic romance, and starring Australian pair Margot Robbie (as Cathy) and Jacob Elordi (as Heathcliff), also arrives today, Feb. 13, in theaters via Warner Bros Pictures — just in time for Valentine’s Day.
“When I think of Wuthering Heights,” says Charli of the classic novel, “I think of many things. I think of passion and pain. I think of England. I think of the Moors, I think of the mud and the cold. I think of determination and grit.”
Stream the album in full here.
