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In 2023, any Taylor Swift song can become a hit. “Cruel Summer” was released four years ago, but the Lover standout has morphed into one of the biggest hits of this season, simply because her fans willed it to happen. “Karma” kept climbing the Hot 100 before it received an official video or remix, and […]
“It’s very nerve-racking,” Olivia Rodrigo tells Billboard during a call a few days before the release of her new single, “Vampire.” But also, she admits, “I haven’t put out music in, what, two years now?”
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Two years, one month and nine days, to be exact: with 2021 debut album Sour, Rodrigo ascended to superstardom and capitalized on the Billboard Hot 100-topping enormity of its lead single, the brilliant breakup ballad “Drivers License.” A pastiche of pop-punk flare-ups, bedroom-pop ruminations and crunchy alternative, Sour led to a best new artist Grammy win, a sold-out 2022 headlining tour, a documentary and a prom-themed concert film… but zero new music from Rodrigo since its release, save for a few previously recorded tunes from her role on the DIsney+ series High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
Rather amazingly, all 11 songs on Sour have peaked within the top 30 of the Hot 100 — but they haven’t been followed by any bonus tracks, guest features or stopgap songs. No wonder “Vampire,” the lead single to Rodrigo’s forthcoming sophomore album GUTS (due out Sept. 8 on Geffen Records), is arguably the most anticipated new single of the year.
Created with her main Sour collaborator, writer-producer Daniel Nigro, “Vampire” begins as a betrayal-strewn piano ballad in the vein of “Drivers License,” but then busts open into a pop-rock epic full of jittery percussion and wounded, dramatic vocal runs — something like My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade, refracted through a generation raised on Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey. “Vampire” represents a go-for-the-gusto pop statement that both pushes Rodrigo’s songwriting forward while also providing plenty for Sour fans. It sounds purposely huge, and like it’s about to be inescapable.
“Putting out a new song is a little bit daunting, but ultimately really exciting,” Rodrigo says. “I just feel really lucky to have so much support coming from all angles.” Below, Rodrigo explains how the song became her new single, and the period of growth she experienced since Sour that will inform GUTS. (Ed. note: this interview has been edited for clarity.)
How did “Vampire” come together?
I wrote it on the piano, the original version, in December of last year, and I really liked it. I remember writing it and feeling like something special was there. And I took it to my producer Dan, and we finished it up together and rewrote some things and produced it. It was quite a long production — it’s pretty lush, so it took us a while. But I’m really happy with the way it came out.
I love how the song opens up after the first chorus into this huge, multi-part, theatrical statement. At what point did it become obvious that this would be the lead single?
We always said that it was kind of our version of a rock opera. [Laughs.] I think as the album was coming together, we were coming up with a bunch of songs that we really liked, but this one always stuck out to me as something that I felt like was honoring my singer-songwriter roots, but felt like an evolution — in a good way that wasn’t too stark. And so I really liked it for that, and it was always one of my favorites.
I’m curious about the messaging of the song — your take on someone using you, and leeching off of your fame. Where did those themes come from? Had they been rattling around in your mind for a while?
I think it’s just a song about feeling used, and all of the anger and regret and heartbreak that comes with it. And I think that’s a common feeling, whether or not someone’s famous. That was something that was just really bubbling inside of me — it’s kind of an angry song, and I think I have a lot of trouble expressing feelings like anger and regret, those are particularly tough ones for me to express. I go to songwriting to get those feelings out that aren’t super comfortable to express in everyday life. So it was a very therapeutic experience, writing this song.
It’s hard to imagine how cathartic this one is going to feel for you when you first perform it live.
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. I’m really excited for the live show — I feel like the album is shaping up to be a really fun set.
You’ve spoken recently about the incredible growth you’ve experienced over the past two years — this whirlwind that included Sour, touring, the Grammys, traveling, now writing again. When you look back on the past two years, what was the most surprising part, something that the Olivia of two years ago never would have expected?
I mean, the Olivia of two years ago definitely wouldn’t have expected her career to do all the crazy, wonderful things that it did so quickly, and I’m very grateful for that. I’ve changed so much in the past few years. All that crazy stuff happened in my career — “Drivers License” came out and it broke all these records, and I was lucky enough to win some Grammys, which was a huge dream of mine ever since I can remember.
But I think the most change I’ve felt was just in Olivia as a girl — growing up and changing from being a teenager to a 20-year-old. All of the maturing and figuring yourself out, that’s just on a normal human-to-human level — I think that was the most surprising thing for me.
Is the pressure you’re feeling ahead of this single release significantly different than what you were feeling ahead of “Drivers License” or Sour?
Totally. It’s definitely a different feeling, and it felt different making this album too. I mean, it’s a lot of pressure. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t feel that. But I think I got to a place throughout making the record where I really shifted my perspective from being like, “Oh, we have to make something that’s gonna impress everyone, and beat the last one!” All of this was just swimming in my head, and I wasn’t writing songs that I resonated with. It wasn’t productive, and conducive to good work.
And so I had to shift my perspective into just trying to make music that I would like to hear on the radio, and once I did that, things started flowing a little easier. So I just try to maintain that that perspective.
How indicative is “Vampire” of the sound of the rest of the album?
I actually feel like the album is really, incredibly diverse. There are other kinds of ballads — I guess I consider “Vampire” a ballad on the record — but yeah, I don’t know! It’s all pretty different.
With “Drivers License,” you translated this painful personal moment into something relatable for a wide audience. Now that you’re at the top of that roller coaster again with this lead single and ready to rush down, how does it feel to be sharing this new piece of yourself?
I mean, not gonna lie, it’s pretty scary! I was definitely a little more dauntless last time with “Drivers License,” because I had no idea that anyone would listen to it – but it’s scary to think about putting a song out into the world that’s vulnerable and represents painful feelings for you.
I’m just trying to not think about it, to keep my head down and do all the work. Everything else is out of my control. It’s kind of nice to give it to people, and then it’s not yours anymore. It’s a beautiful thing! So I’m just trying to remember that.
Amber Bain has a bit of a self-flagellating streak when it comes to her music. “I have this thing where I release songs, and I’ll come back to them later and be like, ‘That’s the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever heard,’” she tells Billboard, as a smile slowly forms on her face. “That’s not happening this time.”
Bain, formally known on stage as The Japanese House, sounds almost surprised as she reveals her lack of contempt for her new music. Her new album In the End It Always Does (out Friday, June 30 via Dirty Hit) shares plenty in common with her past works like 2019 debut LP Good at Falling or 2020 EP Chewing Cotton Wool — meticulously-crafted indie synth-pop that revels primarily in its own honesty about loss and heartbreak.
But Bain noticed something different about In the End shortly after she wrapped recording on the album last year. “It wasn’t intentional, but I think I used female pronouns on nearly every song,” she says. “That kind of stuff used to feel so huge to me — when I was a kid, I’d rewind t.A.T.u.’s ‘All the Things She Said‘ to listen to the word ‘she’ 3,000 times.”
The inadvertent proliferation of queer themes throughout In the End extends to Bain in real life — sitting in a conference room in Billboard’s New York office, Bain sports a beige t-shirt that reads “Abercrombie & Butch,” which she proudly points to as a sign of personal growth. “Three years ago, I would never have worn this, because I wouldn’t want to associate myself with the word ‘butch,’” she says, lightly laughing.
Below, Bain breaks down the conception and creation of her new album In the End It Always Does, how she worked with The 1975’s Matty Healy and MUNA’s Katie Gavin to bring it to life, and how it’s helped her come into her own as an artist and a queer person.
The album is coming out soon — how are you feeling about people finally getting to hear it?
I’m feeling super excited. I recorded it in summer of last year, so I’ve been living with it for quite awhile. which is kind of nice. Because I’ve had quite a big break from listening to it, I’m actually getting to hear these songs as a listener.
I really love that you’ve put a focus on releasing live sessions of some of the songs in lieu of more traditional music videos — is there a reason why you wanted to do that?
I think that, in doing this record, I’ve realized how much I really enjoy playing instruments and playing as a band. I love the musicality of that side of production — I’ve been less drawn to the electronic setup, on my laptop with my fancy screen. It didn’t feel natural to do a music video, because I didn’t want to create a whole narrative. The songs themselves are far less abstract than before, and they’re quite direct and to the point. So I thought, “Well, if I’m doing a performance video, it’d be cool to do a different version of the songs.” Some differ more than others to the original versions, but like, they’re all pretty different.
That “Sad to Breathe” live session was phenomenal, it was so cool to immediately get this very different interpretation of the song.
Thank you — yeah, it was nice to record them, because I really like my band. We haven’t toured since 2020, so those were the first time we were playing as a full band together again.
“Boyhood” is such a fitting lead single for this project, because it shares some DNA with your past work, while also getting right into the more explicit queer themes you see on the record. What went into the writing of that single?
It was a lot of things that sort of amalgamated into this one song. I’d called it “Boyhood” because I’d watched that Richard Linklater film — I love that film — and realized that I have some weird links to it; I think [the protagonist] is exactly the same age as me; my parents are also divorced. So then, I was just thinking about the way that you grow up, and how the things that did or didn’t happen to you really mold you, to the point where you either have to let certain things go or embrace them. And I was thinking about how it’s quite sad that you don’t have a choice of who you are.
That then made me think about how that tied into gender. For the last few years, I’ve really been exploring that I don’t feel like a girl. I really didn’t relate to a lot of my friends who were girls growing up — in our girlhood, I didn’t feel like I fit in to that bracket at all. As a kid, I truly think I was verging on trans; I would really think about changing my gender a lot. As I grew older, there was suddenly language that made it possible to talk about the fact that there are more than two genders, which allowed me to settle into just being whatever gender; I don’t really have a label for myself, maybe genderqueer. So, the song is me wondering how different I would be had I had the boyhood that I wanted. It’s about letting go of needing to know the exact catalysts for everything.
That’s part of what makes it so relatable — because it feels like, on the whole, labels around gender and sexuality have become a lot less important to a lot more people.
Completely — though I do think it’s obviously different for everyone, as well. I think people sometimes talk quite negatively about people making certain aspects of themselves a big part of their identity. But who cares? I mean, I used to be so afraid of making being gay part of my identity, in terms of releasing music. The thought was that I didn’t want that to be my “thing.” Now, I absolutely don’t care if it’s my thing — in fact, it’s kind of amazing that it can be a thing. Today, I walked down the street and I can’t tell if I’m looking at a bunch of lesbians or they’ve just been born after the year 2000. Everyone looks like a lesbian, and I love that!
What felt different to you about the making of In the End It Always Does compared to Good at Falling?
One of the main differences was working with Chloe [Kraemer, the album’s producer and engineer]. When I started working with Chloe, we just kind of became best friends. I don’t think I’d ever worked with another queer woman in that capacity, and it felt like I could see myself reflected. We’re so similar in a lot of ways; musically, our personalities, our identities. That just kickstarted the whole project.
We always talk about the lack of representation for women and queer people in production — getting to work with Chloe, what stood out in getting to experience that feeling of shared space?
It was kind of life changing — like, I don’t ever want to work on anything without her. We have such a close connection, which I do think is because we share such a similar experience. That’s not to say that I’m “missing” something when I’m working with George, but I can just look at her and roll my eyes, and she gets it. You feel f–king crazy when these old men in their 60s are telling you what a microphone is.
In one of the first meetings I had with a manager who I never worked with, he said, “You’re a girl, but you can also produce, that’s so crazy.” Like, why is it crazy? We can use computers. That was about 10 years ago, so just having that connection with someone and feeling completely comfortable and understood made a world of difference.
You also got to work with Katie Gavin from MUNA on “Morning Pages” and “One for Sorrow, Two for Joni Jones.” What was she like to work with?
So “Joni Jones” is probably my favorite-ever studio experience. I had this piano-y song I had recorded that was this really obvious ode to Joni Mitchell. Matty and I decided to make the vocal be this sort of rambling, non-linear piece with it. That morning, Katie was gonna come into the studio because she was in London and we were hanging out. I’d written this weird little poem, which would end up being the lyrics — I was too involved in thinking of how to do it, and so Katie just looked at it and said “I’ll give it a go.”
She sat at the microphone and in one take, note for note, did that entire song. I mean, we were sobbing. She’d never heard the song or read the lyrics. So we kind of got high off that moment for days after. Yeah, I love working with Katie, she’s just a really great friend.
You’ve been with Dirty Hit for nearly a decade of your career at this point — how have you seen your label evolve over the last few years?
I joined Dirty Hit when The 1975 were playing to a few hundred people — I was one of only a handful of people on the label, and I’ve been collaborating with George and Matty for pretty much the whole of my career. Now, the label has all of these other artists, and I feel like there’s a lot of producers who really like working with Dirty Hit. So it’s now a situation where, if you want to work with someone, there’s probably a way through all these artists and connections that you could get there. Which is kind of amazing.
Part of what makes this album work so well is the fact that you’ve clearly figured out a sound that works for you, but still offers you lots of room to play around. How much of that flexibility was an intentional part of the process?
I’ve never really made anything with a direct goal for what it should sound like; it kind of ends up sounding how it sounds, because I just prefer that in the moment. It will just sound like me. But I think your tastes change — the things that excited me five years ago are not the things necessarily that excite me now, but then there’s also like classic things that I’ll always be drawn to. Certain melodies, certain ways of producing instruments, stacking vocal harmonies; that’s just what I love, because it scratches that itch in my brain when I hear it. A lot of producing feels like Tetris to me — you’ve got the perfect line, and you fit it in just the right spot. That’s how I feel when I know that the song is right; it’s just satisfying.
Keanu Reeves dismisses the idea that playing bass in his long-defunct rock trio, Dogstar, was a passion project that he hoped to make time for in between a prolific Hollywood career. “It’s not ‘make time for it,’” he tells Billboard, his hair shagging into his eyes, during a Zoom call earlier this week. “It’s something that’s part of my life.”
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Although Dogstar hadn’t released an album in over two decades — 23 years and four John Wick films ago — Reeves says that a proper reunion with his pals Bret Domrose and Rob Mailhouse had been on his mind for a while. “I missed playing together, I missed writing together, I missed doing shows together. It’s something I’ve always missed,” he admits. “We came to a spot where we weren’t playing anymore, and I missed it … Once we started to play, and it felt good, and really positive and creative, that’s when it was like, ‘Okay, let’s make this happen.’”
The reunion of Dogstar — which has been teased since last July, when their Instagram account declared, “We’re back” — finally comes into focus this weekend, when the trio takes the stage for their first public performance together at BottleRock Napa Valley music festival on Saturday (May 27). The band will play a mix of older songs from their previous studio albums, 1996’s Our Little Visionary and 2000’s Happy Ending, as well as unveil cuts from a forthcoming, as-yet-untitled album — which was always part of the plan when the reunion became official.
“I think all three of us just said, ‘Well, if we’re going to do this, let’s make a record,’” says Reeves. Singer-guitarist Domrose adds, “We just knew that there was ‘X’ amount of time, and we needed to make the most of it. We just locked on as wanting to make this record, and it happened pretty quickly.”
Reeves, Domrose and Mailhouse kept in touch over the years after Dogstar played its final show together in 2002. “We’ve sort of been sporadically getting together, because we’re all friends,” Mailhouse explains. The three would occasionally meet up in the rehearsal space of drummer Mailhouse’s home in Silver Lake to jam, but would seldom come up with new song ideas.
During the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, however, those jam sessions became a bit more concentrated: house visits turned into shared quarantining, and with travel restricted, soon the trio were “stuck together, like we were at camp,” as Mailhouse puts it, and logging eight-hour rehearsal days together. Reeves adds, “We played the catalog songs, and then we can’t help it — we just started writing.” Within two and a half months, the guys had written more songs than they needed for Dogstar’s third studio album.
The timing and release details of the Happy Ending follow-up have yet to be announced, although the band members are confident that they and producer Dave Trumfio (Wilco, Built To Spill) have located a sound that will satisfy new listeners as well as longtime fans who have been waiting for their return. “[Dave] understood where we were coming from,” says Mailhouse, “and worked really well with Bret, layering guitars and doing lots of different sounds and ambient things — things that weren’t just hard rock, in-your-face music, [but] a little more textural.”
Dogstar has played private performances since reuniting, but Saturday’s set at BottleRock marks their years-in-the-making return to the spotlight, and the first of what they hope to be many more shows. The trio says that they’re too excited to feel jittery. “I’m sure as the hour grows closer, I’m gonna get much more nervous,” Domrose says with a laugh.
For Reeves, who joined the band as a rising Hollywood star and returns to it as one of the most consistent leading actors of the century, Dogstar represents a passion that he’s thrilled to return to in a real way after all these years. “It’s a space that I love,” he says, “and a space that I tried to protect.”
Rob Thomas believes that the lead single to Matchbox Twenty’s first album in over a decade works because the band didn’t overthink it.
“Wild Dogs (Running in a Slow Dream),” the pop-rock sing-along that deploys a racing tempo and a handful of rousing hooks, was added to the track list of Where the Light Goes, the band’s fifth studio album, after Thomas, drummer/multi-instrumentalist Paul Doucette and producer Gregg Wattenberg recognized a spark in its music and lyrics — then proceeded to do as little as possible to mess with its momentum.
“There was a vitality to that track – a drive, a visceral feeling, that if we spent too much time polishing and re-polishing, it was gonna go away,” Thomas tells Billboard. “Gregg was very careful to be like, ‘We’re gonna get in, and once we get it, I want you to get out. Capture it, then step away from it. Don’t just keep adding to add.’”
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In some respect, Matchbox Twenty didn’t need to add to its discography: the alt-rock veterans’ catalog, beginning with 1996’s diamond-certified Yourself or Someone Like You, boasts hits like “3AM,” “If You’re Gone,” “Unwell” and “How Far We’ve Come” that could power summer amphitheater shows for years to come. Yet Where the Light Goes, due out this Friday (May 26) on Atlantic Records, is the product of a creative drive and longstanding collaborative ease: Thomas, Doucette, bassist Brian Yale and guitarist Kyle Cook have conceived the follow-up to 2012’s North, which topped the Billboard 200 chart upon its release, as a loose, unabashedly heartfelt check-in from a collection of old friends.
Matchbox Twenty kicked off their 54-date Slow Dream tour earlier this month, and will be playing a mix of old hits and new album cuts on the road through August. Ahead of the tour kickoff and album release, Thomas and Doucette chatted with Billboard about how an unlikely full-length turned into one of the most satisfying projects of their shared careers. (Ed. note: this conversations has been condensed and edited for clarity.)
Considering it’s been over a decade since the last Matchbox Twenty album, how does it feel to start the machine back up?
Thomas: Oddly comfortable and normal.
Doucette: We’ve done so much in our lives, so it’s like, we haven’t done it in a long time, but it doesn’t necessarily feel that different. The world is different — like, we didn’t have to worry about TikTok [before]. We just made a video for “Wild Dogs,” and part of that conversation is, “How does this work in small little cuts?” Those aren’t conversations that we used to have. So there’s definitely new things in this process for us, but it is still the process that we’ve been doing all of our adult lives.
Thomas: From 1996, we’ve only existed through change. When we started out, it was this period where we got to make a lot of mistakes, and they were private — they didn’t exist online, nobody was there with a camera, TMZ didn’t exist. We were a band that came out at a time when we said the actual phrase, “Do you think we need a website?” Social media didn’t exist until like three records in.
So I think that we came along at a really good time to expect and be ready for change, whenever we were starting a new endeavor. But then at the same time, we’re getting ready to go on tour, and this process where we bring out the gear, we make sure that we’ve got the sound just so — this was exactly the same in 2017, in 2015. That’s the job, and that feels very familiar.
When did you guys start focusing on this group of songs?
Thomas: We were pretty much at a place where we didn’t think we were ever going to make a full-length record. Going into 2020, it was, “Let’s record a couple of songs to accompany the tour, and then maybe that’s our business model — you know, we tour every couple of years, and we maybe release a song or two.” That didn’t excite Paul. He wasn’t sure how much effort he wanted to put into a couple of songs, so he was like, “If you guys want to run with that, go for it.” So during that time, Paul listened to [the song] “Where the Light Goes,” and he was just like, “I like that one, maybe you guys should work on that.” And me and Kyle worked on it.
It was 2022, and other bands were really out touring, and we didn’t go out. And there was a sense that we were letting fans down. It was Kyle who would start the conversation of, “Maybe we do want to make a full-length record — we’re gonna be sitting at home, we’re not gonna be doing anything this summer, and that would make next summer even more exciting for people that have been waiting for three years. It’s another level of excitement to that touring process.” So that just got the ball rolling.
Doucette: I ended season three of [co-composing the score for] For All Mankind in April, I think, and then in May I flew to New York to start working on this, and it was basically from May until December. I think we all kind of felt like we were never gonna make another record — and then suddenly, we were making a record, and that record’s done! In the grand scheme of things, this record came together probably more quickly than any record we’ve ever done.
Thomas: To be fair, though, this wasn’t a situation where we went into the studio and wrote all the songs. Some of those were written during the process, but then some of those were 75% done and then we’d jump in and help finish it together, and some were 100% done. We came in with a lot of material, and then we whittled down a good portion of this album with things that were started at different times, and then just finished as a band.
How much of the creative energy between you guys was just like old times, and how much has it evolved over the years? Since it’s been such a long time that you all worked on an album together, what was it like trying to regain a rhythm?
Thomas: Some things are just very automatic. You’re just like, this is how this works, I see where you’re going with that, let me pick that up. It’s happening amongst a group of guys who are 10 years older than the last time we did it — and the last time we did it, we weren’t young. And so I think there’s a refinement to the process that’s welcomed, in a really big way, and a civility to the process. We’re less precious with our feelings and our ideas — we want to get something done, but at the same time, we’re very precious with other people’s feelings and other people’s ideas. So I feel like everything about it that was different was only for the better.
Doucette: Also, like, you’re not fighting for an idea simply to fight for it. We just want to come up with the best thing, and that takes a lot of the pressure off, because you’re more willing to try stuff that might get shot down. We were working on a song called “One Hit Love” on this record, and we were trying to find the chorus for it. We were playing the track in Gregg’s studio, and we had a microphone, and Rob would get up and say a line, sing a melody. And I’d go, “Oh, no, let me try this.” And I’d try something and he’s like, “No, not that.” It was going back and forth until we got it right, not going, “It has to be this, I believe in this more than anything!” The benefit of age is just being better at that, at being more conscious of each other’s feelings. You can have that conversation in a healthy way.
A lot of lyrics on the new album contain a personal specificity, even as the themes are pretty universal. I’m thinking of a song like “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” which is about identity and how your past informs your present.
Doucette: I know that, at least for me, I’m trying to write from a place that’s searching for positivity. There’s a poster from an artist named Deedee Cheriel that says ‘You Have Everything You Need,’ so I wrote “Friends” about that. “One Hit Love” is a song that we wrote that’s about this might be doomed, but we’re gonna go for it anyway. I just want to keep writing about hopeful things. That said, there’s a song, “Warm Blood,” that’s totally negative.
Thomas: I’m always like write, write, write, and I end up writing four or five songs for every one that I actually like. After 30 years, it’s become about getting a sense of what you’re writing about, but then trying to find a way to say it that has its own flair, its own color. When you talk about relationships, it’s easy to fall into the same tropes – you want to try and find new ways to express yourself. The effort that we put into the lyrics on this record, I think makes it one of our strongest ones that we’ve written.
On this week’s Billboard 200 chart, Ed Sheeran’s – (pronounced Subtract) scores the top debut of the week, starting at No. 2 (behind Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which spends a 10th week at No. 1) with 112,000 equivalent album units, according to Luminate. The album also launches at No. 1 on the Top Album Sales chart, with Sheeran’s largest sales week since 2017.
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Subtract marks a departure in sound for Sheeran, who worked with producer Aaron Dessner and used the album as an outlet for his grief and pain following a traumatic beginning to his 2022. “Eyes Closed,” the album’s lead single, became a top 40 hit on the Hot 100 upon its March release, and a new version of the song “Life Goes On,” featuring country superstar Luke Combs, was recently released.
What does the No. 2 debut on the Billboard 200 signify for Sheeran? And which song from Subtract could turn into a hit single? Billboard staffers discuss these questions and more below.
1. Like a whole lot of albums this year, Ed Sheeran’s latest is blocked by Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time from the top of the Billboard 200. On a scale of 1-10, from crushed to elated, how are you feeling about a No. 2 debut with 112,000 equivalent album units if you’re Ed?
Andrew Unterberger: Solid 6. Those are about the numbers that Sheeran’s = (Equals) album did two years ago, with a huge pop hit and generally more commercial momentum behind him. Stinks to not get the No. 1, and it doesn’t seem like this album is going to have a ton of commercial impact beyond the first week, but given the lack of advance buzz for the set (and how divided his attention has been in the weeks leading up to its release), I think that number is on the high end of the range I might expect for its first week.
Jason Lipshutz: A 3. This album, an acoustic exploration of personal pain, was always viewed as a sonic detour for Sheeran, so its commercial performance was likely going to differ from that of his more radio-ready projects. And ultimately, the launch of Subtract falls right in line with the bow of 2021’s Equals, which was preceded by the hit “Bad Habits” and debuted at No. 1 with 118,000 equivalent album units. Wallen’s One Thing at a Time is a juggernaut, and debuting right behind it, with a comparable total to Sheeran’s last full-length, should be considered a generally positive development.
Katie Atkinson: A solid 5. While Ed has a proven track record for No. 1 albums at this point – with every studio album since 2014’s X (Multiply) topping the Billboard 200 – I don’t get the impression he made Subtract with the charts or pop radio in mind. Actually, he might not have even cared if anyone beyond his diehard fans heard it. As he expressed in his Disney+ docuseries, Sheeran was working through a lot of “heavy stuff” during this album, which naturally made for a quieter, more understated album. It’s a project worth listening to, but it’s not the kind of bombastic project that skyrockets to No. 1. In fact, I’d say No. 2 is mighty impressive for this personal, weighty album.
Lyndsey Havens: 8.5. Ed seems like a guy who wants to win, so I’m sure he would have hoped for a No. 1 debut. But that said, to enter the tally behind a top-spot-blocking behemoth and with over 100,000 units is commendable. To know just how much an album that’s meant to honor his family and late friend Jamal Edwards is resonating with fans should arguably be more gratifying than securing a No. 1.
Rania Aniftos: A 4. After watching his The Sum of It All documentary, I learned that Sheeran is really, really hard on himself. Given that knowledge, and also how different this album is from his past few, I’d be pretty disappointed. He really put his heart on his sleeve and tried something new, which I do applaud him for, despite maybe a less-than-ideal outcome.
2. While Sheeran’s previous three studio albums were each preceded by top 10 Hot 100 hits, Subtract lead single “Eyes Closed” has thus far peaked at No. 19. Are you surprised that the single hasn’t taken off yet?
Andrew Unterberger: No. The song just doesn’t have a lot of juice to it — it sounds like a less-striking copy of older Sheeran cuts, without any of the left-turn unexpectedness we were led to expect from this album. Radio will probably continue to play it a little while longer, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a couple of months, they’re back to playing “Bad Habits” or “Shivers” in heavier rotation.
Jason Lipshutz: Yes! Very! I first heard “Eyes Closed” a couple of months before its release, and thought that the song – with its combination of finger-picked riff, understated production, affecting emotion and post-chorus “ay-yi-yi” hook – would become another smash for Sheeran. “Eyes Closed” hasn’t connected thus far, and it may never, especially if top 40 radio moves on to his version of “Life Goes On” with Luke Combs. I would have bet big on the lead single blowing up here, but as of now, it seems I would have lost that bet.
Katie Atkinson: No, but only because I think this one will be a slower burn. Sonically, it’s one of the more upbeat songs on the project, and its bittersweet lyrics convey the kind of universal feeling of loss that could eventually connect with an adult contemporary or adult pop radio audience – à la Maroon 5’s “Memories” – a 10-week-plus No. 1 at both formats. Sheeran’s own “Bad Habits” and “Shivers” will both be dominant as well, so I think there will (eventually) be an appetite for this song.
Lyndsey Havens: Not really. Compared to previous singles like “Bad Habits” or “Shivers” off Equals, both of which were sinewy pop hits, or “I Don’t Care” with Justin Bieber from No. 6 Collaborations Project, “Eyes Closed” is most similar to 2017’s Divide. But even songs like “Castle On a Hill” and “Shape of You” packed a bit more of a punch. I think “Eyes Closed” is a stunning ode to loss, but perhaps not what everyone is gravitating towards as we enter the summer months.
Rania Aniftos: No, but only because I think we’re in a readjustment period when it comes to Sheeran’s new music. We had a few years where he was giving us some really catchy pop hits like “Shivers,” “Bad Habits” and “Shape of You,” so Sheeran returning to his softer state might take some getting used to, both from fans and from radio.
3. Some of Sheeran’s biggest hits, from “Thinking Out Loud” to “Perfect” to “Shivers,” were not lead singles. Is there a song on the new album that you has a shot at taking off?
Andrew Unterberger: No, though “Curtains” is a real highlight from the set that I think would have made for a much bolder and more attention-grabbing lead single — even if its commercial upside would’ve also been somewhat limited. (As a near-carbon copy of “Thinking Out Loud,” maybe “Life Goes On” could also benefit from the attention the former has received over the course of Sheeran’s much-publicized recent trial.)
Jason Lipshutz: “Life Goes On” is an effective belt-along in the vein of Sheeran’s bigger ballads, and the new version featuring Luke Combs augments the better qualities of the track. Yet the song I’m keeping an eye on is “Curtains,” which sounds primed for an adult-contemporary takeover if the album campaign allows. The soaring chorus has seeped into my brain – I find myself going “Sun… SHINE! SHINE!” multiple times a day – and the guitar-and-strings arrangement has real teeth.
Katie Atkinson: I have to lobby for “Curtains.” I think it’s a perfect midway point between Ed’s ballads and his “Shape of You”-style radio hits – it’s catchy and has rapid-fire clever lyrics, but also has a bit more of a rock groove that really shows off his musical skills beyond his acoustic slow-tempo numbers. Also, its optimistic spirit is right there in the chorus: Let’s pull back the curtains and see the sun shine.
Lyndsey Havens: “Sycamore” is a gorgeous Ed song that I think people will connect with even more over time. It’s a stellar snapshot of what Ed has always done best, which is tell a beautiful love story in the length of a pop song — only now, the one he’s telling is about what happens after you find that love. It’s not always perfect, and he’s not shying away from that.
Rania Aniftos: I’m torn between “Curtains” and “End of Youth.” I think “Curtains” is the more upbeat, digestible track on the album, and has some hopeful lyrics that we can all relate to about coming out of a dark period. Similarly, “End of Youth” has themes of fear and aging that are so universal that it might connect to enough people to make it a hit.
4. The new album is a mostly acoustic offering that focuses on a difficult period in Sheeran’s personal life — a sharp left turn in sound for a stadium headliner. How do you think the album will endure within Sheeran’s discography?
Andrew Unterberger: I don’t think it’s really that much of an outlier in his catalog, to be honest — the only way it obviously differs from past Sheeran LPs to me is the lack of an obvious pop single, and even without those clear radio plays, it’s not like this set is starkly uncommercial by any means. There are some good songs here, and I imagine one or two might endure as fan favorites, but ultimately I just don’t think this is an album many people are going to think of when they think of Ed Sheeran decades from now.
Jason Lipshutz: Regardless of its commercial performance, Subtract was a risk that I’m glad that Sheeran took: instead of downplaying his personal difficulties and tossing out more pop hits, the superstar changed up his formula, challenged himself as a songwriter and presented his situation with unflinching honesty. Not all of Subtract is successful, but the album stays true to Sheeran’s grief, and offers empathy to any listener experiencing something similar. It’s going to age well.
Katie Atkinson: I find it to be a very worthwhile, if at times a challenging, listen. I think a lot of the lyrical themes of drowning in an infinite ocean can make some of the music feel hopeless – but like navigating the stages of grief, there is life beyond hopelessness, as shown in the more positive moments, as Sheeran begins to heal from all the personal trauma that came his way. The acoustic vibe also fits Sheeran’s busking beginnings, but I think in the end, I probably prefer my Ed in a cheekier musical space, so I would likely turn to other albums for repeat listens.
Lyndsey Havens: I think a lot of these songs will find a home in the “deep cut” section of Ed’s future tours, and rightfully so. Because of how personal they are, I don’t think they would naturally fit alongside some of his more danceable pop hits on a setlist, but that doesn’t mean they’ll fall to the wayside, either. I think with time — and as some of his fanbase perhaps hits the place in life where these songs resonate on a deeper level — the songs that make up Subtract will be held close.
Rania Aniftos: I look at Subtract the same way I look at Taylor Swift’s Folklore and Evermore. They’ll hold a vulnerable, acoustic moment during Sheeran’s tours, though I still think fans will still mostly look forward to hearing the hits and the throwback tracks.
5. A new version of “Life Goes On” features Luke Combs, and in a recent chat with Billboard, Sheeran expressed interest in making a country project. Ed Goes To Nashville: yee-haw or yee-naw?
Andrew Unterberger: Yee-haw! Perhaps Sheeran’s most underrated career strength is his impressive adaptability to different sounds and genres, from Afrobeats to reggaetón to EDM. He’d be a particularly natural fit in country. I’d only hope he explores more than the staid balladry of Nashville, since he’s already maybe a little too deep into that pocket at this point in his career.
Jason Lipshutz: Yee-haw! Even if Sheeran doesn’t record a full country album, maybe we get a little more of that flavor on his next Collaborations project? As a fan of Subtract, I’m down to see what other rabbit holes he can successfully leap down.
Katie Atkinson: Yee-haw! Obviously it served his superstar bestie well for many years, and his voice alongside Combs’ was a perfect (sorry) match at the ACM Awards. A full country project from Ed would make all the sense in the world.
Lyndsey Havens: Yee freaking haw.
Rania Aniftos: I mean, given the Billboard 200 this week, I’d say yee-haw! Let’s get Morgan Wallen on the phone.
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THE ALBUM
An Inbuilt Fault, out Friday (May 5) on Partisan Records.
THE ORIGIN
You wouldn’t recognize the Westerman of 2016. In the earliest days of his life as a professional artist, Will Westerman sported long, curly hair and played folk music that most often earned him comparisons to Nick Drake. By the time he began getting more notoriety, he had totally transformed. Now in his early thirties, he keeps his hair shorn close and wears sleeker clothes, mirroring the evolution of his music.
In the late ‘10s, he began collaborating with the producer and fellow Londoner Bullion, who helped Westerman achieve a more electronic sheen. His early singles — including the breakthrough 2018 track “Confirmation,” which ignited a flurry of blog hype — had an alien quality, singer-songwriter fare put through a strange, otherworldly filter.
Since “Confirmation,” the path has been as circuitous as Westerman’s exploratory songwriting. His debut album, Your Hero Is Not Dead, was finished and ready for release in 2019, but he alludes to various speed bumps caused by some people who “behaved badly.” Eventually it arrived right in the summer of 2020, with Westerman unable to tour or promote it properly due to the pandemic. Afterwards, he underwent a crisis of faith, wondering whether he wanted to release music anymore. “It took me about a year to get back in the headspace where I thought it was worth making music again,” he admits. “I remembered why all this stuff started in the first place.”
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THE SOUND
Part of the power in Westerman’s recent music is the contrast between warped guitars and synth textures, and Westerman himself. He has always had a rich, expressive voice — it can be crystalline, but also not without a smoky huskiness. As a child, Westerman sang in choirs, and recently found solace in revisiting unaccompanied plainsong as a way of reconnecting with the human voice during long stretches of lockdown isolation. It gives him a unique melodic sensibility, where he may wind and surge beyond the lines we usually associate with pop song structures.
Sophomore album An Inbuilt Fault was intended to be serpentine and unpredictable as well. “I wanted it to feel very close, and less sculpted,” Westerman says. “I wanted it to have a breathing quality.” At the time, he was demoing over polyrhythmic loops, experimenting and writing for himself without any expectation of necessarily finishing another album. In addition to the comfort of choral music, he was digging way into krautrock. “It was the sense of freedom, the sound of freeform expression,” he recalls. “It was the music I needed at that time.”
While Westerman’s guitar is still pivotal to his music, An Inbuilt Fault takes the organic/artificial tension of his music to a new extreme, putting his voice to the forefront over a newly percussive backdrop. Abandoning the beats of past recordings, he wanted to embrace playing live in a room with human beings again — once he was finally able to. An Inbuilt Fault ended up being a document of a group of musicians wrestling an elusive sound into being, all tumbling drums and guitars surrounded by all manner of flickering, alluring textures at the songs’ edges.
THE RECORD
With everything on hold, Westerman decided it was time to try a big life change he’d thought about for years — he wanted to move to Athens. Embarking on a “half-baked” plan to live in a van in the Balkans, he started across Europe and stopped to visit his father in rural Italy for a week. Thanks to more COVID lockdowns, he ended up being there for six months.
For all that time, Westerman had very little human interaction aside from seeing his father. He began writing songs again, mostly as a way of keeping himself sane, but eventually saw an album taking shape. When it was time to record, he reached out to Big Thief drummer/producer James Krivchenia — who he’d briefly hit it off with at a show immediately before the pandemic — and with Krivchenia’s touch and ear for percussion, An Inbuilt Fault has that more alive feeling Westerman was looking for.
“I wanted to jump off the cliff creatively,” Westerman says. “I wanted to put myself in an environment that was completely alien to me as a way of trying to grow, to break out of the solipsistic way the music had been forming up until that point.”
That isn’t to say the core ethos of Westerman’s writing was lost in the process. The music unspools and ambles, so it takes longer for these songs to sink into your head, but they don’t leave once they’re there. His melodies are as gorgeous as ever: one of the album’s most simultaneously jarring and transcendent moments is when he slides into the chorus of “Idol:RE-Run,” which happens to wring a hilarious amount of beauty out of the word “motherf–ker.” (“It wakes you up,” he quips.) Meanwhile, “A Lens Turning” uses a dexterous, knotty groove as underpinning for navigating a similarly tangled existential crisis. Closer “Pilot Was A Dancer” has an almost ‘90s alt-rock tone to it, a cathartic burst of guitars as Westerman tells an apocalyptic story about the last human being alive on Earth.
Though Westerman’s songs are inspired by an array of experiences, both his and others, he rarely is autobiographical. At the same time, he acknowledges much of An Inbuilt Fault is traversing relatively dark themes, its title a reflection on our inherent fallibility. At the end of it all, he’s made another striking album that also feels like a hard reset after the ellipsis of 2020. It feels like he’s starting again.
THE FUTURE
Westerman did eventually make it to Athens, and his early days there were wild — things were just reopening, and parties thronged the streets at all hours of the night. One of the singles from An Inbuilt Fault, “CSI: Petralona,” is a rare moment that does derive more directly from Westerman’s actual life, inspired by a “near-death” experience and the kindness of strangers. But since then, it seems he’s settled into his new life in Greece.
“It’s almost the opposite of London,” he muses. “It’s slow-paced. It’s lugubrious chaos. Nothing really works very well but there’s a strange internal logic to it where it does.”
With some distance from London, and from the hubs of the music industry in western Europe and North America, Westerman has found he’s been more clear-headed creatively. He’s come out the other side of questioning his life as a musician revitalized and re-centered. “It remains the same irrespective of whether five people are listening or five thousand,” he says. “The scale is irrelevant in terms of process, and when I remember that it is very helpful. I know I’ll continue to do it now in some capacity, because I know I need to do it.”
To that end, he mentions he’s already close to finishing the recording of another album.
HIS FAVORITE PIECE OF GEAR
“I’ve been using this Meris Hedra pedal. It has three pitch shifters but it’s got secondary functions of delay and feedback. I think you can make a whole record with just a voice and this pedal. It would be an interesting thing to do that as a confined exercise. I don’t really understand it. It’s such a deep piece of equipment I don’t know half of it.”
THE ARTIST THAT HE THINKS NEEDS MORE ATTENTION
“There’s loads. There’s an artist called Clara Mann. She’s almost folk revival, slightly maudlin, sadly beautiful minimalistic guitar singer-songwriter. I really enjoyed listening to that yesterday so I’ll go with that now. That’s a difficult question because there’s literally thousands.”
THE THING THAT HE THINKS NEEDS TO CHANGE IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY
“I don’t think there is enough protection for artists — in general in the industry, but particularly for younger artists. There’s a disposability culture, where there isn’t really a huge amount of accountability for the way older people in the industry can exploit the good will or naivety of younger people when they’re offering something. It’s not like designing a washing machine. It’s a different sort of thing.
“I think it would be good that, if [and] when people are exploited through their inexperience, there was some kind of culpability for the people who are doing that. Currently there is none. Seemingly there are very few bodies of people you can go to when things go wrong. Generally the people who carry the financial and emotional burden when those things happen are the people least equipped to do it, and that’s an imbalance that is not right.”
THE PIECE OF ADVICE HE BELIEVES EVERY NEW INDIE ARTIST NEEDS TO HEAR
Westerman pauses for a while, and then says simply: “Keep going.”
At one point during the first show of her long-awaited, highly anticipated Eras tour on Friday night (Mar. 17), Taylor Swift described herself as “really overwhelmed, and trying to keep it together all night.” It’s easy to understand: this enormous stadium trek, one of pop’s hottest tickets in years, also happens to be Swift’s first proper tour in five years, thanks primarily to the pandemic. The pop superstar has released a whopping four original albums (plus two re-recorded ones) since last hitting the road, and on Friday night at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., she told the crowd that she had been dreaming about this day — the day that she could finally perform this wealth of new material — for a long time.
“Overwhelming” would also be an apt way to describe the sheer tonnage of the Eras tour: with segments dedicated to all 10 of Swift’s studio albums, the show entertained a sold-out, frequently screaming stadium audience for 3 hours and 15 minutes, as Swift tirelessly showcased her skill set and various artistic personas across a whopping 44 songs. The most dominant artist in popular music has used this live run to reflect on the various iterations of her career to date, and the achievement is often staggering, with costume changes, set-piece upheaval, vulnerable moments in a crowd of thousands and sing-alongs that will rival the scope of any tour this year.
The Eras tour is going to satisfy a lot of Swift diehards in the coming months, who will surely find their own favorite pockets of the set list. And while Swift fans should embrace the entire experience, the opening night provided some clear-cut highlights. Here are the 13 best moments from the Eras tour kickoff in Glendale on Friday night:
The Cathartic Opening of “Cruel Summer”
Although Swift technically opened the show with part of a different Lover track, “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince,” the brilliant synth-pop single “Cruel Summer” was the first to get the full, stadium-show treatment, complete with a raised platform, backup dancers and Swift unveiling a diamond-encrusted one-piece with matching tall boots. For both the fans in attendance and Swift herself, the song seemed to represent an exhalation — this tour was finally happening, and this immaculate song, three-and-a-half years old at this point, was finally being performed.
The First Era-Hop, Into ‘Fearless’
“Tonight, we’re going to be going on an adventure, one era at a time!” Swift declared a few songs into the show — a concept that truly sunk in a few minutes later, when the first era of the evening, Lover, gave way to Fearless both in the set list and stylistically. Gone was the glitter getup and deep pop rhythms, replaced with a fringe dress and sunny country licks from Swift’s acoustic guitar, as she jumped into the Fearless title track, “You Belong With Me” and “Love Story.” The “Fearless” change-up marked the moment that the idea of the Eras tour fully snapped into place, and the crowd was enthralled with the approach.
Taylor’s ‘Evermore’ Defense
In the middle of the Evermore mini-set, Swift sat down at a moss-covered piano and talked to the audience about how gratifying it was that she was finally getting to perform her “four new members of the family” — Lover, Folklore, Evermore and Midnights, the four albums she’s released since her last tour. She added that Evermore “is an album I absolutely love — despite what some of you say on TikTok!” She paused for comic effect, then deadpanned, “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen all of it!” Even if some TikTok users haven’t warmed as much to Folklore’s counterpart, Swift gave Evermore prime placement in her set list, with a total of five songs performed from the album, including “’Tis The Damn Season,” “Willow” and “Tolerate It.”
The Unexpected “Don’t Blame Me” Showcase
When the Evermore part of the set ended and snake scales appeared on screen, everyone in attendance knew that Reputation was next up — and while singles like “…Ready For It?,” “Delicate” and “Look What You Made Me Do” were all delivered with high energy, “Don’t Blame Me” was bestowed with a fiery passion that, even compared to how its swooping harmonies were presented on the Reputation tour, elevated the album cut. Quite literally: Swift sprung skyward on a platform while attacking a big, showy note during the song’s climax, making for one of the more memorable technical performances of the evening.
“Enchanted” as the Dramatic ‘Speak Now’ Representative
It’s hard to quibble with set list exclusions when the set list in question contains 44 songs… but still, Speak Now are not going to be thrilled that the Eras tour contains only one song from that particular era. At least that song stood out as a highlight: “Enchanted” found Swift in a flowing ball gown maximizing the emotional stakes, with acoustic strums laying the groundwork for a full-band crescendo. If “Mine,” “Back to December,” “Mean” and “Dear John” aren’t getting any burn on this tour, “Enchanted” will have to be a powerhouse for the third-album diehards… and on opening night, it was just that.
The Extended Version of “All Too Well”…
After rolling through Red highlights like “22,” “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble,” Swift spoke to the audience about how meaningful the success of both the original Red in 2012 and the re-recorded version in 2021 had been for her. Then, Swift asked if the crowd had an extra 10 minutes to spare. The chart-topping 10-minute version of “All Too Well” followed the roars in response, and naturally functioned as a centerpiece for the entire set, arriving roughly at the halfway point and becoming an emotional anchor for the evening. By the time that paper snowflakes fell across the stadium during the final minute, the magic of the moment was widely accepted.
…And the Three-Word Shout-Along Within “All Too Well”
When you attend a Taylor Swift show in 2023 (and beyond), you simply will not experience a bigger sing-along moment than the phrase “F–k the patriarchy!” In the 10-minute “All Too Well.” Not only does everyone in attendance sing along, they scream along, and wind up to it in the preceding lyrics! Talk about magic! Count on Swifties loudly flipping off men in power, in unison, for years to come.
‘Folklore’ Deep Cut-Turned-Viral Smash “August”
Taylor Swift pays attention to her fans — when she says she’s seen the Evermore hate on TikTok, she’s kidding around, but rest assured she’s actually seen it. So when deciding which tracks from the sprawling Folklore to play, there’s no doubt that Swift noticed the fan adoption to “August,” which wasn’t a focus track upon the album’s release but has since become a fan favorite that’s often bubbling up on social media (especially during the titular month each year). The mass sing-along of “August” may have caught some offline attendees as a surprise, but Swift’s fans fiercely love the wistful folk-pop track, and demonstrated their appreciation at the opener.
The Neon Golf Clubs of “Blank Space”
Swift’s backup dancers rode out on neon-lit bicycles during her performance of the 1989 smash, but that was only prelude to one of the night’s better visuals: Swift and her cohorts brandishing blue-lit golf clubs during the bridge, and then smashing an animated car (a la Swift’s crazed attack in the “Blank Space” video) on a mid-stage screen, each new dent in time with the song’s beat. It was difficult to look away from the spectacle, and became the sort of sight gag that sticks with you long after the show has wrapped.
The Surprise Acoustic Track
Deep into the evening, Swift grabbed her guitar and announced that she planned to perform an acoustic song that wasn’t included in the Eras set list during the tour, with the hope of never duplicating the song she selected for each performance. It’s a strong move in theory — even after the Eras set list gets mulled over endlessly, there will still be a new surprise each night — and was even better in practice, as the achingly beautiful “Mirrorball” was selected for the first performance. The acoustic tracks probably won’t be as strong as the Folklore standout on a nightly basis, but for the Glendale audience, the choice made opening night even more special.
The “Anti-Hero” Metaphor Comes to Life
Earlier in the evening, Taylor Swift gave a begrudging shout-out to everyone in the audience who was dressed like a “sexy baby” in tribute to the “Anti-Hero” lyric; later, when her latest No. 1 smash was performed, Swift embodied the “monster on the hill” line that follows it. On the video screen behind her performance, Swift turned herself into a Godzilla-esque creature terrorizing a city before glumly sitting on (and destroying) an office building. On a night with a lot of impressive choreography and stage setups, that straightforward visual — Swift as the problem, it’s her — became one of the more interesting spectacles of the show, and added to the performance of the hit single.
The “Vigilante Shit” Dance Routine
Speaking of spectacle: Swift goes full-on burlesque alongside her dancers for the Midnights standout, dancing on and around a chair and having an absolute blast while doing it. The song comes about three hours into the performance, but Swift conjures every ounce of energy to turn one of the more sparsely produced songs in her catalog into an enthralling jam.
Ending With a Fan Favorite
The final era presented during the Eras tour is Midnights, and Swift could have capped it with a hit — “Anti-Hero,” of course, or maybe fast-rising follow-up “Lavender Haze.” Instead, she concludes the evening with a trio of non-hits that fans truly adore: “Bejeweled,” “Mastermind” and “Karma.” The logic behind that decision is simple: the Eras tour is less about hits than it is about fan service, and ending on a song like “Karma” nods to those who inhale every song on a Swift track list instead of just paying attention to the singles. This run of shows is for the fully committed Swift listeners, and an album cut like “Karma” is the perfect way to bid them adieu for now.
Chvrches has never been prone to releasing one-off singles that aren’t tethered to either a larger project or is a collaboration with another artist. Yet the long-running Scottish trio is kicking off their 2023 with “Over,” a behemoth of a synth-pop track due out on Friday (Feb. 24) that represents a new chapter for Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty — who celebrate the 10th anniversary of their debut album this year, and are using the new single to launch their recent major-label deal.
“Something that’s come up recently, that I thought was a nice way to frame this, is that we signed new record deals, and there’s kind of a new lease on life for the band,” Doherty tells Billboard. “It’s a chance for us to work within a new paradigm.”
“Over” dates back to 2017, a product of a few nights in which Doherty and producer-songwriter Oscar Holter would hang out and write a few demos together. “That was before he went on the craziest run ever,” Doherty says, referencing Holter’s work on smashes like The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” and “Save Your Tears” and Coldplay & BTS’s “My Universe” in the years that followed. “We were working on some stuff just for fun.”
The demo floated in the ether for a few years: the band knew “Over” could be a big song for them, but it didn’t fit on a project like 2021’s Screen Violence, which the trio wanted to write and produce completely on their own. At the end of 2022, the band reconnected with Holter, who wanted to revisit “Over” and help flesh it out into a proper Chvrches song.
The trio and Holter punched up the track and “got it to a point where everyone was happy with it,” explains Doherty, “and where it felt like somewhere that Chvrches could be going, potentially — that isn’t to say that’s where we’re going, but something that felt 2023, and not like something that’s been kicking around for a few years.”
In its newly finished form, “Over” is gargantuan, a more muscular version of Chvrches’ synth-rock sound with a classic Mayberry hook designed for expansive festival crowds. As Mayberry’s voice pleads for understanding and romantic comfort, the synth chords are smashed, lonely guitar riffs wander around and the percussion recalls a classic Jam & Lewis beat; the song has a gusto like it were made without album-track expectation or any of its limitations.
“There’s something incredibly freeing and no-strings about thinking outside of a long-form narrative, for the first time in 10 years,” says Doherty. “It’s quite liberating, and quite fun.”
After rising to fame and releasing their first four studio albums with Glassnote Records, Chvrches signed a new deal with Island Records in North American and EMI in the U.K. last year. Mayberry says that the label jump was the product of an amicable split at a time when the prospect of a new direction was appealing. “We’ve always been really lucky to have great partners with what we were doing,” she says. “Making some of the changes was quite emotional … But we’re really excited by what Island and EMI were bringing to the table.
“I don’t know if we’ve necessarily benefited from the kind of old-school approach — getting songs on the radio, et cetera,” Mayberry continues. “I don’t think that blueprint works for us. And a lot of that is based on — alternative radio in America is all f—king men! It’s all men! And there was a time, at the beginning of the band especially, where there was a narrative of, ‘Oh, we’ve just playlisted [another] band with a female vocalist,’ even if they sounded completely different than us. So it was really exciting to talk to people who viewed it more holistically, like, ‘Where are Chvrches fans, and how can we get things to them?’”
After touring behind Screen Violence over the past two years, Chvrches will head to Brazil in March for a string of dates supporting Coldplay on their global stadium tour, and Mayberry cryptically adds that “there’s another batch of shows that are coming, at some point.” When asked how much writing and recording they expect to get done this year, Mayberry admits that the band isn’t sure.
“Whatever we make next, we have to take the time on it,” she says. “It has to move the conversation forward in some way.”
“It’s an incredibly rare and privileged position after such a long period of time,” adds Cook, nodding to the decade-long run of the band since their 2013 debut, The Bones of What You Believe. “We don’t really have any kind of ceiling on things, or know this is how long this is gonna go on for. We’re just taking things as they come in, and as long as we’re enjoying it, we’ll keep doing it.”