Courtesy of Atlantic Records
I went into listening to Charli xcx’s new album, “Wuthering Heights,” with excitement and curiosity. My draw to this album was Charli xcx herself. I have never read or watched “Wuthering Heights,” so I came into this album purely for Charli’s music. This made me listen with one main question: will the album sound only like a movie soundtrack, or will it sound like a stand-alone album? It is important to note that the full album is not featured in the movie, so it is not a movie score. Charli was asked to create a single, and felt inspired to make a full-length, twelve-track album, eight of which are featured in the movie.
The first song on the album, titled “House” features John Cale, one of the founding members of The Velvet Underground, and was the first single, released Nov. 10 of last year. The first half of the track features Cale performing his own spoken word poetry over haunting string instrumentals, with Charli xcx later joining him, repeating, “I think I’m gonna die in this house.” Together, they build up to a distorted electronic breakthrough that carries through to the end of the song. The mood is intense and impactful, being an abstract mix of Cale’s spoken word, Charli’s moaning vocals, orchestral twinging melodies and electronic distortion. It is not what I would exactly call “easy listening,” but it has a unique sound that I like and assumed would set the mood for the rest of the album.
However, I found my assumptions to be wrong. While there were gothic and orchestral themes throughout, the mood of the songs were lighter, not just compared to the first track, but compared to most of Charli xcx’s discography. This was definitely a pop album. The repetitive use of string instruments like the violin and viola, paired with synth melodies and vocal layering creates a dreamier sound when compared to the majority of Charli’s discography. The overall sound was reminiscent of Charli’s first album, “True Romance,” along with the sound of early 2010’s pop. Dare I say, parts even reminded me of Taylor Swift’s “1989.”
The second song, “Wall of Sound,” was slower and bare, with a similar feel to the “brat” album’s stripped down and vulnerable track “I might say something stupid.” The album shifted between these slower, stripped-down songs to airy, upbeat pop tracks, having a similar flow to The Cure’s album “Disintegration.” My roommate astutely pointed out that track five, “Chains of Love,” has a similar chord progression to Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love.” It makes sense that Bush would have been an inspiration for this project considering her 1978 song “Wuthering Heights,” written after Bush watched one scene of the 1967 serialized BBC adaption of the novel. While I understood the purpose of these slower tracks for the conceptual flow of the album, I found myself a bit bored when these songs came on. I was excited to hear the track “Eyes of the World” featuring Sky Ferreira, but felt underwhelmed while listening. I was hoping Charli would further explore the intense instrumental sound she captured in “House,” mixing it with her punchy rave capabilities. This darker sound only seemed to be truly explored again in the last track, “Funny Mouth,” which had a tense sonical buildup with little payoff. I tend to gravitate toward Charli’s most upbeat and explosive songs, which may explain my initial lack of enthusiasm towards some of the sound, but upon further listening, this more whimsical sound has grown on me.
This album is conceptually cohesive and a different, yet interesting side project for Charli, with certain tracks possessing more stand-alone listening quality than others. My takeaway tracks from the album are “Dying for You,” “Chains of Love,” “Out of Myself” and “My Reminder.”
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