By Rosie Conner
Actor Joe Keery – renowned for his role in the Netflix Hit series Stranger Things – established his reputation in music under his alias Djo. The 2022 song ‘End of Beginning’ achieved over one billion streams, allowing Djo to become a new mainstream artist.
Following that initial success, Keery released his anticipated third studio album in April, titled The Crux and fans have been uncertain if the album could maintain the same approval.
The 12-track LP opens with ‘Lonesome is a State of Mind’. The song commences with high-pitched electronic elements, which immediately generates an uneasy atmosphere before the lyrics start. Around the 20 seconds mark, the listener is introduced to Keery’s soft-spoken voice blended with a gentle acoustic guitar. The lyrics explore themes of loneliness and nostalgia, constantly repeating “I’ve heard this before, I’ve had this before.” The song slowly develops into an increased tempo with the acoustic guitar rapidly speeding up. The melody now executes an upbeat feeling, illustrating Djo’s realisation that ‘Lonesome is a State of Mind.’ From the chorus, the song brings a distinctive new emotion. The upbeat rhythm, dominating drums, backing vocals, and electronic elements of distortion. Like a “Coming of Age” movie, the track captivates emotions of hope and resilience.
The second track and lead single – ‘Basic Being Basic’ – incorporates the electronic elements of a synthesiser, powerful alternative pitches, distortion, effective drums and rhythmic lyrics. The song explores themes of devotion, with an alternative motive of ‘not wanting to be basic.’ This track is slightly comedic, while executing a rhythmic captivating beat.
There is a distinctive contrast between the first and second track, Djo now alternates between exploring the theme of depression nostalgia to a song about being basic. From my analysis, the two songs differentiate; not on purpose, it’s about Djo’s individual monologue. The album takes on varieties of emotions, like they take on varied alternatives genres.
This track is significant due to the subtle, yet recognisable reference to The Beatles. ‘Charlie’s Garden’, the eighth track on the studio album, mentions ‘Penny’, recognisable to Beatles’ enthusiasts as a nod to the 1967 track ‘Penny Lane’. ‘Charlie’s Garden’ resembles the iconic eighth studio album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, more specifically ‘Lucy In The Sky with Diamonds.’ The iconic track is renowned for its distorted psychedelic rock, percussion, range of pitch and distorted electric melody and ‘Charlie Garden’ uses an interesting combination of high-pitched vocals and alternative jumpy beats. As the song received appreciation, numerous people have noticed the song has connotations to Keery’s Stranger Things co-star, Charlie Heaton. I guess you can say he gets by with a little help from his friends.
The album has furnished a piece that evokes a wide range of emotions, from encountering nostalgia from ‘Lonesome is a State of Mind,’ to experiencing vigorous energy listening to ‘Charlie’s Garden.’ From my evaluation, this album incorporates elements of psychedelic rock and alternative indie to produce a dominant comeback, after the renowned track ‘End of Beginning.’
