American actor and musician Joe Keery released his sophomore album, “Decide,” under solo project Djo (pronounced the same as “Joe”) on September 16, 2022. Familiar amongst pop culture spheres as Steve Harrington in the Netflix hit series “Stranger Things,” Keery shocked fans with his musical talent.
The album begins with the track “Runner,” which is a chorus-heavy and lyrically repetitive song: “Love and hate decide/Money grows and dies/People never change/But I have to try,” cycle for the first half of the song before transitioning to a break that, too, is repetitive in nature. While little variation in lyrics can be seen often in the synth-pop and electronic genre, “Runner” along with “Slither,” are the only two songs of the thirteen-track album that follow such a repetitive nature.
In those two songs, “Runner” and “Slither,” the central focus of the song is neither the lyrics nor the instruments, rather what their combined composition do in tandem. For example, as Keery transitions lyrically between the chorus, break, and bridge of “Runner,” the tempo and pitch of the synth instruments change, giving a greater effect of dynamism despite the repetition in the lyrics. “Slither” similarly introduces both the first lines of the pre-chorus with percussion, then builds with more layers of synth before dropping into the chorus.
Unlike the previous songs, tracks like “Half Life” and “On and On” have fully developed verses, and both of these tracks happen to highlight different aspects and effects of social media. “Half Life” focuses on the pressure social media has on ego, particularly as a pop-culture icon. Alternatively, “On and On” dives into the all too relatable activity of doom-scrolling and how attention consuming and draining it is, hitting the nail on the head with the chorus: “Scrolling on and one and on/Feed the algorithm some/On and on.”
Overall, the ego and identity struggle detailed throughout Djo’s “Decide” paired with the enticing psychedelic synth made for an easily consumable album. This album does not fit well with the often-high danceability of synth-pop, but it makes for a great set of head-nodding and shoulder-swaying to the sonically creative percussion of electronic rhythms.
