Charli XCX’s ”Wuthering Heights” fever dream

Emerald Fennell's new adaptation of Emily Brontë's 1847 gothic romance "Wuthering Heights" is the most talked-about film of the year. But for pop lovers, the soundtrack is the real event: Charli xcx, asked to write one song, ended up recording an entire album for the movie while in the middle of the BRAT tour.

If BRAT gave people permission to be messy on the dance floor, this score gives permission to be messy in your souls. But Charli isn't the first artist to channel "Wuthering Heights" into music. Line up her hyperpop strings and cavernous reverb against Kate Bush's winding harmonies, a Hollywood orchestral score from 1939, and Ryuichi Sakamoto's unsettled piano, and something surprising emerges: the most operatic, passionate, Wuthering Heights-obsessed recording of them all might belong to someone you'd never expect.
Songs discussed:

• Charli xcx “Everything is Romantic”

• Charli xcx “Always Everywhere”

• Charli xcx “House” (feat. John Cale)

• Hans Zimmer “Inception score”

• Charli xcx “Wall of Sound”

• Ike & Tina Turner “River Deep, Mountain High”

• Charli xcx “Chains of Love”

• Charli xcx “Out of Myself”

• Charli xcx “Funny Mouth” (co-written with Joe Curie)

• Alfred Newman “Wuthering Heights score (1939)”

• Ryuichi Sakamoto “Wuthering Heights score (1992)”

• Kate Bush “Wuthering Heights”

• Celine Dion “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now”

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