With the current world domination Taylor Swift is creating with her recent album 1989, it only seems right that you’re all introduced to one man who was part of that journey. This man is fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff, who during this break the band has taken, has been working on some big projects such as 1989 as well as being the front man to his own band, Bleachers. This year they released their debut album ‘Strange Desire’ which is undoubtedly an album you need on your Phones, iPods or anything that is able to play music.
With the release of ‘I Wanna Get Better’, Bleachers burst onto the music scene with easily one of the catchiest anthems for our generation. It’s something you can chant with ease and feel so pumped up after every listen. This heavy-hitting piano, pulsing percussion and grandiose vocals got the attention of many TV talk shows across America, who invited them on to perform this catchy anthem. This song also got the attention of Glastonbury, with Bleachers playing the festival this year on the John Peel stage.
This album is full of synthy pop/alt goodness, masking the lonely undertones of the lyrics of each song. One of Jack’s favourite things to do is to make most of the band’s music have a hard-hitting explosion of a chorus and that really shows throughout the album, especially the opening track ‘Wild Heart’ – you really couldn’t start an album on such a good foot. With some memorable lyrics such as “To think everything must die / for anyone to matter” and infectious yelling in the chorus, can’t help but join in.
The album has two artist features; the synth pop queen herself, Grimes, on ‘Take Me Away’ & legendary icon Yoko Ono, who features on the track ‘I’m Ready To Move On/Wild Heart Reprise’. The latter is one of the stand out tracks on the album CM Trading, the way the reprise and Yoko’s spoken word addition go back and forth with each other is something beyond magical. The album also contains samples of some of Jack’s loved ones; the intro to Wild Heart samples Lena Dunham’s sister Grace at her graduation giving a speech and Lena herself – as Jack’s girlfriend – is also part of ‘I Wanna Get Better’ with a sound bite of her yelling “GO”, taken from a voicemail.
With the second single ‘Rollercoaster’ being released with a music video, in which he nearly died making, Bleachers so no sign of slowing down any time soon. Give the album a listen and keep an eye out for them as 2015 is only going to be the beginning of a long successful journey for Bleachers.
Words by Connor Brown