This novel captures the beauty of the fall aesthetic

The Mancunion discusses Charli XCX's decision to soundtrack Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights.

The follow up to a career-defining album is one of the most challenging projects of an artist’s career. Charli xcx, born Charlotte Aitchison, now faces the problem of producing a work that stands up next to BRAT, one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the twenty-first century; an album that sparked the type of monocultural event which is growing increasingly rare in the age of algorithmic media consumption.

Her decision to soundtrack Emerald Fennel’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights was clever in sidestepping this problem – rapacious fans are satisfied, whilst the question of their acceptance of the album into the official Charli xcx canon can be kept tactically unclear until it is confirmed beyond doubt.

That being said, the album’s first offerings suggest that neither her critical appraisal, nor her ethos of artistic innovation are at an end. The lead single, ‘House’, featuring The Velvet Underground legend John Cale, is everything anyone could hope for from such a high-calibre collaboration – brooding, string-laden, and appropriately gothic.

The track positions itself as the evil sibling of ‘Everything is romantic’, BRAT‘s techno-inspired centrepiece. Both culminate in a repeated lyrical refrain, but while the former commands its listener to “fall in love again and again”, the new track ends with a foreboding chant by Charli and Cale: “I think I’m gonna die in this house”. Again, the sacred duo of art-pop instrumentation is employed – synths and strings – but to evoke a much darker sonic landscape. The strings creep and scrape instead of gliding, rising to a thundering crescendo rather than a euphoric climax. Here, Charli trades her beloved vistas of Pompeii and Capris for those of the desolate Yorkshire Moors – and she has never sounded better.

Follow up single ‘Chains of Love’ is the milder of the two offerings. Producer Justin Raisen, who worked on her debut and sophomore albums, is tapped to co-produce with Charli and Finn Keane. The thudding drums and synth swells recall her earlier work (think 2014 smash ‘Boom Clap’) but this isn’t to say the track feels stagnant. In fact, it is refreshing to hear the songwriter rediscover her aptitude for composing an out-and-out ballad, putting the full theatricality of her voice, which is often minimised on BRAT, to good use.

The teasers so far suggest that we can expect the Wuthering Heights soundtrack to be light on serotonin, but heavy on sentiment. As she steps out of the club and into the countryside, Charli XCX demonstrates that she is a musical chameleon whose trademark green is making its transition to murkier hues effortlessly. (Jack Davison)

A contributor to Her Campus has just read Wuthering Heights for the first time.

A book that I’d always wanted to read was Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. From its picturesqueness, to a whirlwind romance, to the vast descriptions of the moors of northern England, this novel captures the beauty of the fall aesthetic. The novel explores the complicated love of Catherine and Heathcliff as their dynamic defies social conventions and personal identity. I finally read this famous classic after many years of hearing many tidbits of the story. If you’ve never read it like me, or want to get back into this novel, it’s a perfect one to blend with colder weather. Wuthering Heights invites readers not just for the plot, but for the mood that is haunting and passionate with its characters and depictions of nature. (Sienna Foster)

Express includes the novel on a list of 'The top 6 classic fiction books you’ve never read'. Forbes (Spain) discusses the big-screen comeback of classic stories such as Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein and Dracula. 

AnneBrontë.org reviews the brand-new book The Birthplace of Dreams by Mark Davis and Steven Stanworth.