By the time Stranger Things finally sinks into the Upside Down for good, Joe Keery might be known as “the guy from Djo.” For all their attempts to strip the magic and unpredictability out of music consumption, Spotify and TikTok algorithms occasionally create rogue waves that thrust dormant deep cuts like “End of the Beginning,” a low-key slice of synth-pop from Djo’s second album, Decide, to streaming numbers measured in billions. It doesn’t even take a great hook; sometimes just one line will do. “When I’m back in Chicago, I feel it” raises some questions, namely, what is it about Chicago and what even is it? Yet the fuzziness of that line hit the viral bliss point. The Crux proves Keery’s unexpected hit was not just a fluke: Djo’s now highly anticipated third album is filled with vibey prompts, winking self-reference, and nagging melodies, a jukebox stocked with the past 20 years of quirked-up white boys with a little bit of swag. Which feels like the exact opposite of what Keery intended.
The Crux is an album that aspires to reviews sprinkled with words like “wry,” “writerly,” or better yet, “gimlet-eyed.” Combined with Djo’s new lean toward streetwise power-pop and mandatory Steely Dan influence, they’d also take “L.A. album.” Keery described it as a concept record, “a hotel housing guests who are all, in one way or another, at crossroads in their life.” If that sounds like one of those ensemble cast whodunnits cluttering prestige TV these days, wouldn’t you know, the songs themselves replicate bumper music in Netflix house style: “Have this character announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have this program on in the background can follow along.”
Lead single “Basic Being Basic” is the most glaring example of Keery and co-songwriter Adam Thein’s tendency to mistake mere observation for insight. “I think you’re scared of being basic,” Keery chirps, but what does it mean to be basic? Do the basic realize they’re basic? Have critiques of social media progressed beyond “It’s ’cause you’re always on that damn phone,” or jokes about posting salads on Instagram? Is the “Love It If We Made It”-style monologue at the bridge a sneak diss at the 1975 or Keery cribbing their notes? The verses offer no answers; they’re just here to support a song that considered its work done once it dropped “basic” in the chorus. Or maybe this Obama-core indie pop is a form of 4D chess mastery, meeting the “cheugy-phobes” on their own terms; when Keery falsettos on the chorus, I can taste the molecular cocktails and see the “Beets Don’t Kale My Vibe” tote bags anew.
