{"id":335787,"date":"2026-02-13T18:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/335787\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T18:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T18:49:08","slug":"charli-xcxs-wuthering-heights-album-is-banging-bonkers-and-better-than-brat-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/335787\/","title":{"rendered":"Charli XCX\u2019s Wuthering Heights album is banging, bonkers and better than Brat \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wuthering Heights<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Artist:<\/strong> Charli XCX<\/p>\n

Label:<\/strong> Sony<\/p>\n

If there was a moment when the sun finally went down on Charli XCX<\/a>\u2019s Brat summer, it was at Malahide Castle in Dublin last June, when the newly crowned pop superstar delivered an underwhelming and bloodless performance<\/a>. Brat\u2019s official colour scheme was a sort of radioactive lime green. Here was a show sure to turn even the biggest fan green at the gills.<\/p>\n

The contrast between this bland bop and her tectonic turn at 3Olympia in 2022 was striking. Was superstardom a bad fit?<\/p>\n

That answer is hinted at in Charli XCX\u2019s brilliantly moody and evocative soundtrack to \u201cWuthering Heights\u201d<\/a>, Emerald Fennell<\/a>\u2019s new film, which is also released today. The album showcases the musician\u2019s experimental side and confirms that she is one of those pop stars who produce better art when not trying to deliver a hit. <\/p>\n

If there are parallels, it is with her 2017 release Pop 2, another wispy, weird record that felt like a masterpiece as encountered through the far side of a seance.<\/p>\n

Where this Wuthering Heights would seem to part ways with Emerald Fennell is in its emphasis on restraint. The new movie may feature extended shots of Jacob Elordi<\/a> heaving and hooting on the moors, but the LP is all about intimacy and interiority. <\/p>\n

That much is spelled out on its haunting opening track, House, where Charli ululates in the manner of a mildly discommoded banshee as John Cale<\/a>, the great bard of Celtic desolation, looms in the foreground, like an ancient building that has weathered the years and refuses to crumble.<\/p>\n

A mood board rather than a conventional album, the record morphs into a jagged power ballad on Wall of Sound, where Charli\u2019s vocals crack with emotion against a stark swirl of strings. Art pop gives way to disco abandon on the pounding Dying for You, which begins as a pastiche of the Buggles hit Video Killed the Radio Star and then swerves into a fearless foray into weepy hauteur on the dance floor.<\/p>\n

That Charli doesn\u2019t quite know how to respond to the fame she long sought and finally achieved with Brat is underscored by the mockumentary film she is releasing in parallel with Wuthering Heights. Charli is a good actress \u2013 she more than acquitted herself hosting Saturday Night Live in 2024 \u2013 but the consensus is that, with The Moment, she seems unsure whether to skewer the absurdities of the music business or play along with them. <\/p>\n

She\u2019s a half-in-half-out star, aware of the ridiculousness of the dog-and-pony show yet keen on a big shiny ribbon nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, all of those concerns seem a thousand miles away on Wuthering Heights, a Narnia record with a secret door that leads the listener to somewhere beyond The Moment and its tiresome navel-gazing. <\/p>\n

It also celebrates an unheralded aspect of Charli XCX\u2019s songwriting: her talent for bleak, brooding ballads. Pop 2 brimmed with them, and she harks back to that period of her career on the wonderfully woozy Always Everywhere, a tune so huge it\u2019s best listened to outdoors, lest it punch a hole in the ceiling.<\/p>\n

Cale aside, the only cameo is from Sky Ferreira<\/a>, the great lost star of millennial pop, whose husky voice fuses winningly with Charli XCX\u2019s on Eyes of the World, although the song itself feels more like a pause amid the stormy weather of the rest of the album than anything worth celebrating in its own right.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Wuthering Heights\u2019 film review: Less 120 Days of Sodom, more Carry on HeathcliffOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Reviews of Fennell\u2019s take on Wuthering Heights have been mixed, but it\u2019s hard to imagine Charli XCX\u2019s accompanying soundtrack having the same Marmite effect. It ends with the brilliant one-two of My Reminder, a bare-bones banger that has Charli emoting against an electro-clash bass, and Funny Mouth, a perfect dreamlike sigh-off, with lashings of strings and Charli seemingly singing from the bottom of a bog. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s fantastically weird album, much better than Brat and almost enough to wash away memories of her moribund mooch at Malahide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wuthering Heights \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 \ue9d9 Artist: Charli XCX Label: Sony If there was a moment when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[75],"tags":[3030,18,31561,117,19,17,11490,51272,159925],"class_list":["post-335787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-charli-xcx","tag-eire","tag-emerald-fennell","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jacob-elordi","tag-john-cale","tag-sky-ferreira"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116064823863193771","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}