‘Chains Of Love’: Charli XCX shares balladic new ‘Wuthering Heights’ cut
When Charli XCX’s producers teased that her next project would be “anti-brat”, no one would have ever predicted that it would be a full-length soundtrack album to accompany a Wuthering Heights adaptation.
I’m incredibly reluctant here to say soundtrack, because it feels way bigger than that. Speaking about the project, XCX said, “After being so in the depths of my previous album, I was excited to escape into something entirely new, entirely opposite.” What was initially supposed to just be one song ended up being a full length LP as the world of Emerald Fennell’s upcoming movie clearly intoxicated her.
XCX is right though, there could be nothing more opposite from the 365 party girl neon green world of Brat than the rugged moors. The artist said, “When I think of Wuthering Heights, 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,” and previously, it would have been tough to imagine her embodying any of them.
But on the two tracks now released from the soundtrack, Charli XCX is proving she’s an artist far broader than any box you might put her in. On ‘House’, she called up The Velvet Underground’s John Cale, bringing her varied musical influences and deep love for the band and for Lou Reed to the dark, glitchy and gothic chorus of “I think i’m gonna die in this house.”
On ‘Chains Of Love’, however, she’s gone full power ballad, capturing the all-consuming, obsessive love of Cathy and Heathcliff. Going all in on poetry, it takes the lyrical prowess that’s always been there under the beats and puts it in overdrive, surrounding it with strings.
It’s a perfect meeting in the middle. This is still a Charli XCX song, complete with the familiar vocal effect and huge electronic details, but in the vastness of it and classical elements, it becomes rich and cinematic, yet all in her own way.
It’s clear that Charli XCX grabbed at this chance with both hands, distilling the world of this film through her own vision and finding freedom in it, shaking her out of the Brat era and proving to the world that she’s alwas been way more than that anyways.
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