Can I speak to you privately for a moment?

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts

20/02/26 : Wuthering Heights - Charli XCX

Well, I don't think this is a controversial choice - but there are certainly questions to be asked as a result of meeting it. More on this later!

Well, this is quite an interesting one. I actually quite enjoyed it because it's a decent soundtrack album and yet not really a soundtrack album at all - which is probably something I need to explain a bit further. The music doesn't sound particularly typical for Charli XCX, but it does sound like the sort of thing you'd want for a contemporary take on Wuthering Heights. As far as I'd know anyway - I'm not an expert on such things but it's swirling and emotive (although "House" is a bit of an odd track, but it features John Cale so that's not a huge surprise). However, all the tracks have lyrics, which I wasn't expecting for a soundtrack - I suspect they mostly don't feature in the film (and I also suspect I'll never find out). I'm not sure I'll revisit this or how people who are looking for a standard Charli XCX album will take to it, but I liked the general vibe.

We're at #1 with a new entry in the chart this week and the rest of the top five are Olivia Dean (of course - her fifteenth consecutive week in the top two), Fleetwood Mac, The Weeknd and Bad Bunny. But, for a change this week, we don't have many strange new entries to consider.

Kylie Minogue (#19)
This is a live album from her Tension tour - I'm sure it's fine if you're looking for this sort of thing, but I was fine not spending 100 minutes listening to it. I had a good time when I saw her live but the audience vibe (and outfits) were a big part of that and some things just don't transfer to audio.

Brent Faiyaz (#28)
I'd not previously heard of Mr Faiyaz - I was worried he was going to be a rappy dude, but he's actually a smooth R&B dude. I was reminded of Craig David or slower tempo Michael Jackson - it's not my sort of thing but it's done well and is enjoyable enough.

And that's your lot! We have considerably more re-entries, but none of them are of any interest - Deftones (#57) are the highest and all the rest of them are in the 90s. Last week I said that J Cole would be at #45 with no real thought behind that number, so it doesn't surprise me in the slightest that he's at #16. I feel this album wouldn't generally do that well, but Charli's name will keep it higher than I'd expect so let's go for #27 for next week. And this week's Taylor stats are one in the top twenty and five in the entire chart. 

Before we leave the charts, we have to discuss the question that need to be answered - which is how come a soundtrack album is eligible for the main chart? (as opposed to the soundtrack chart, which is where all the eg Disney albums end up). I was under the impression that such things were not allowed, but it turns out I was basically wrong - single artist soundtracks featuring original songs (which is pretty much what that is, with the addition of a few guest artists) are eligible for the main chart - so all is good!

Wikipedia tells us this is her second soundtrack album - she also did Bottoms, which is supposed to be a pretty decent film. Apparently Emerald Fennell approached Charli to compose a song for the soundtrack and so obviously Charli decided to write several and then do a full "companion album" so I've no idea how much of the album actually features in the film. Critically, it was very well received and commercially it's done well in English speaking countries, getting to #4 in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. 

discogs.com has quite a few copies of this and they're all the green and black marbled vinyl version and they cost about £31 except for one that has an A4 poster print which is going to set you back £60 - that had better be one impressive A4 poster print! I liked this album though and suspect I'd enjoy it more if I went back to it, but it just doesn't feel very likely - it's easily good enough to take the album of the week award

13/02/26 - Well done, but not for me


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