Charli xcx is set to release twelve original songs on the 13th February 2026, as part of the soundtrack to Emerald Fennell’s upcoming film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights. But what does this shift from dance music that defined a cultural era to a gothic literature-inspired film soundtrack mean for the star’s future?
Charli xcx is a singer-songwriter from Essex. She began releasing music in the early 2010s and grew in popularity with hit songs such as ‘party 4 u’, ‘I Love It’, and ‘Boom Clap’. In 2024 her career hit a new peak with the release of BRAT, her most successful album yet.
Everything about BRAT became iconic. The album cover’s simple font and bright green background are instantly recognisable. Songs from the record inspired viral trends on social media like the ‘Apple’ dance. Due to popular demand, Charli xcx even released a remix album, BRAT and it’s completely different but also still brat, that features collaborations with artists including Troye Sivan, Lorde, Robyn, Ariana Grande and many more. The album created a cultural moment so widespread that fans lovingly refer to the summer of 2024 as ‘BRAT summer’. Through BRAT, Charli earned her first certified platinum record, five Brit Awards, and three Grammy Awards.
Yet with great acclaim comes considerable expectations. Although this breakthrough into mainstream pop stardom brought Charli xcx incredible commercial success, BRAT is a tough act to follow. In an interview with Zane Lowe, Charli spoke about the pressure surrounding her next release, saying: “whatever I do next will be compared [to BRAT] even if the music is completely different”. While many artists in a similar position to Charli would choose to play it safe and capitalise on their popularity with another similar sounding record, Charli, in true BRAT fashion, has defied all expectations and has selected the soundtrack for Emerald Fennell’s upcoming film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights as her next musical endeavour.
So far, Charli xcx has released three singles from her Wuthering Heights album in anticipation of the film; ‘Wall of Sound’, ‘Chains of Love’, and ‘House’ featuring John Cale of The Velvet Underground. This collaboration with Cale is especially exciting, as Charli has looked up to him for many years. In an Instagram post she said that she was moved to tears by the music legend’s “elegant and brutal” contributions for the song.
A lyric from these singles that particularly stood out to me was “I shouldn’t feel like a prisoner” from ‘Chains of Love’. Whilst this lyric of course relates to the emotions of the characters within the Brontë novel, it also applies to a darker truth about the music industry — the spotlight can be a prison for artists. Charli xcx mentioned in a post on Substack that this project was an opportunity to escape from BRAT into a world “without a cigarette or a pair of sunglasses in sight” and thus the expectations that come with her status as a pop star. This lyric blurs the line between Charli’s literary inspiration and her lived experience of feeling trapped within the pressures of mainstream success.
Charli knows that her future music endeavours will continue to be compared to BRAT. Although the three singles we have heard from Wuthering Heights so far are sonically significantly different from Charli xcx’s earlier works, they still carry a similar essence to the culture-defining dance record that is quintessentially Charli. Just like she did with BRAT, Charli is pushing outside the boundaries of what music we expect pop artists to create with her work for the “Wuthering Heights” soundtrack. This drastic pivot from BRAT to Wuthering Heights highlights Charli xcx’s commitment to her own artistic vision, refusing to let societal expectations or the pressures of commercial success limit her ambitions. I for one am excited to see what this refusal to play it safe will mean for Charli xcx’s future releases.
lllustration by Katya Roberts.