The Singles Jukebox

Keeping up with TikTok pop while we still can…

[Video]
[3.75]

Leah Isobel: I kind of want to be a hater about this. “Stranger Things star makes budget Ariel Pink pop about growing up, goes viral on TikTok” is an insufferable Mad Libs narrative pitch. The lyrics feel cryptic in a bad way, like Djo is aware that he’s traveling well-trodden ground and straining to justify himself. And yet, his acting background comes through: his hammy Boris Pickett affectations lock him to the beat, keeping the song from feeling overly self-indulgent. It’s still a little mushy, but that’s not a crime.
[5]

Nortey Dowuona: Djo has rightly seized on his captive audience in order to launch his pop rock career, but it thankfully hasn’t spiraled the way the Childish Gambino project did to the point where there are insufferable fans and detractors duking it out over its merits — mainly because it’s too good to be dinged, but not good enough to be more than a popular actor’s passion project. Adam Thein’s limp drums, which have aged badly since 2022, can’t keep the overwhelming pace of the synth riffs or the lumpy bass left in the background of the mix. They support the toplines rather than drive the song, as many a baseline has done, but that then leaves the topline to hold everything up, which it constantly refuses to do. As for Joe Keery, he is no Childish Gambino before 2012. At least it’s short.
[4]

Alfred Soto: The Stranger Things actor is too old by at least five years to have taken Twenty One Pilots seriously.
[0]

TA Inskeep: Owl City 2024.
[2]

Dave Moore: The verses are synth fetishism worthy of an awkward Stranger Things teen romance subplot (derogatory), followed by a pale imitation of a Sufjan Stevens chorus (complimentary). The ingredients sort of work on paper — I am only human, which is to say a dork who was born in the ’80s. But the song just sort of sits there, like it was designed to be vaguely apprehended floating through a pop-up beer garden.
[5]

Taylor Alatorre: Are we just supposed to take these younger artists’ word that their work is primarily inspired by genuine Nineteen-Eighties music, and not the phantasmal refractions of it that were being created between 2008 and 2015 (and beyond)? Because whatever points I take away for roteness and facelessness, I may give back for honesty. Anyway, check out Twin Shadow’s new single “To the Top” if you get the chance. Sound of the summer.
[4]

Katherine St. Asaph: This is by a Stranger Things actor and supposedly sounds like the ’80s. What it actually sounds like is the driftier, understated parts of ’90s alternative radio playlists. And as someone who owns the Carice van Houten album, I fully support TV folks making vanity albums that don’t sound like what you’d think.
[6]

Mark Sinker: He’s singing “tear to cry,” but I first heard it as “diddikai”, the Romani term for a traveler not fully Romani. Maybe you can make something of this – musician who fashions his artistic persona round not being the character he plays in a multi-season Netflix series! – but I’m not sure I sensibly can. The song is pretty and mannered and flimsy; he’s way not old enough to have the wisdom he thinks he has. 
[5]

Isabel Cole: “I wave goodbye to the end of beginning” is a great line, capturing the moment when you might not feel particularly like an adult but understand, suddenly, that until recently you were very young, and now you are something else. I do remember twenty-four! Unfortunately the actual song is a plodding, soupy nothing.
[0]

Will Adams: When you’ve got an admittedly gorgeous arrangement of languid, synth-smeared indie-rock, the last thing you want to do is sound like a try-hard; and yet, Joe Keery’s delivery of clipping every syllable makes “End of Beginning” almost embarrassing to listen to.
[5]

Ian Mathers: There are some choices here I kind of like (mostly around the lyrics and vocals), but the guitar tone, the chiming synth sound, and something about the production overall feels instantly dated, like I’m already looking forward to me five years from now hearing this and going “yeah, a lot of shit sounded like that in 2024.”
[5]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: An absolute nothing of a song – but I know, deep in my heart, that if I had encountered this as a college freshman it would have absolutely rocked my shit. Keery is seven years too late for me, but I’m glad this exists for those who need it. Will I still feel this warmly towards this mediocrity if I have to hear it out in the world for the next year or so? Well, that’s not my problem right now.
[4]