Charli XCX might be the busiest person in pop music. Following the success of arguably the most iconic album of the 2020s so far, BRAT, she dropped a full remix album merely months afterwards, featuring highly famous popstars such as Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande.
Then in 2025, Charli decided to capitalise on this culturally significant moment by starting to film for The Moment, which was released only two weeks before Wuthering Heights; both an album and a film soundtrack. It is fair to say that Charli XCX has fully cemented herself into the mainstream. Now that she has reached this peak of popularity, Charli XCX is able to introduce more avant-garde genres of music to the mainstream.
Neoclassical Darkwave is not a genre typically associated with accessibility; rather, the opposite; artists such as Kristin Hayter (formally known as Lingua Ignota) and Anna Von Hausswolf have attracted a more niche following for the macabre atmospheres they create through their music.
Charli XCX is well known for the opposite, making catchy pop tunes whilst being one of the early pioneers of the electronic and experimental offshoot of pop, Hyperpop.
This is precisely why ‘House’ featuring John Cale, formerly of The Velvet Underground, is the main highlight of this otherwise unremarkable album. It might be the first song of its kind in the sense that it is Neoclassical Darkwave to the core, whilst being produced by Finn Keane, who also produced the soundtrack to Barbie. All elements of the track complement each other impeccably, from the harrowing strings that form the hook, which accompany John Cale’s spoken word section, to Charli XCX’s Death Industrial-coded vocal performance. With that said, most of these tracks are a prime example of not bad, yet not quite enough to move the needle.
Take ‘My Reminder’ for example, a song with a well-produced synth, catchy chorus, and satisfying rhythmic percussion, yet it provides very little musically compared to the highs that BRAT was able to reach almost two years ago. It is clearly apparent that this album falls short in the replay value department, especially when it is put up against the likes of BRAT, Charli or How I’m Feeling Now.
Most of all, this album represents a resetting of fan expectations following the phenomenon that was BRAT. The goal for this project, for Charli XCX, was to enable her to venture into multiple creative pathways afterwards. It has succeeded.
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