Charli XCX, whose Brat summer defined 2024, has just released her new single ‘Chains of Love’, a track written especially for the upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation by Emerald Fennell. The soundtrack, which will be released in full next February, is due to have 12 original songs.

On her newly launched Substack, Charli wrote about her experience making the album. “I was purely a voyeur and I was enjoying being one,” she said. “The language of this world felt so opposite from the world I had been inhabiting for the past 2 and a half years. I began to feel a sense of freedom again.”

The feature film, directed by Emerald Fennell, stars Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi in the lead roles. Fennell is known for her devout love of pop music and use of it in her stunning, freaky, sometimes divisive films.

Charli’s musical output for the last few years has been deeply influential on the current pop scene, with devout fans crediting her with starting a musical movement – and she wouldn’t be the first to do so.

In the 1960s, a little band called The Velvet Underground sparked their own musical movement. While they never reached super-stardom in their day, as Charli XCX has, their music is cited as direct inspiration for many of the chart-topping stars who shaped our musical history.

This latest single release comes but a couple of days after her last magnificent treat from the Wuthering Heights album, ‘House’ featuring John Cale, an original member of The Velvet Underground.

Cale moved to New York as a young man with his viola and classical training. He worked with LaMonte Young, where they performed the most extreme musical experiments you’ve probably ever heard of. They would open a box of butterflies in a room with a window cracked, and drone on one note until all of the butterflies left.

Later, he would meet Lou Reed in the legendary Pickwick building, and The Velvet Underground was born. Quite a bit later, he met Charli XCX. Charli was reportedly brought to tears after the collaboration. The track shows the new slower, grittier, but still Charli-esque vibe this album exudes.

Charli is not only releasing this album next year, but starring in A24’s upcoming film The Moment, and others including Faces of Death, I Want Your Sex, The Gallerist, 100 Nights of Hero, Sacrifice, and Erupcja.

Here is the official audio for Charli XCX’s ‘Chains of Love’. The full album and film drop on February 13, 2026.