Strange Desire
While he came to prominence as the guitarist for fun., Jack Antonoff formerly fronted the pop-punk upstarts Steel Train and has written songs for the likes of Taylor Swift and Sara Bareilles. He\'s a pro, in other words, and his craftsmanship shines through on the debut of his new project, Bleachers. Packing more \'80s punch than a pair of legwarmers and a can of Tab, *Strange Desire* looks to acts like Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds, and Duran Duran for inspiration. \"Wake Me\" has some \"Voices Carry\" ethereal slow-jam magic to it, and \"Rollercoaster\" sounds like Blink-182 covering \"Dancing in the Dark.\" Even Yoko Ono shows up to add some angular \'80s experimentalism. Yet the smash single \"I Want to Get Better\" is distinctly of-the-moment, a mash of looped pianos and choral chanting that makes for one of the summer\'s most unlikely jams.
Antonoff has made an album of pretty songs that, even while being aimed at the widest audience, feel like they couldn’t have been written by anyone else.
He decided to time travel back to the '80s and write songs for John Hughes-directed high school movies that never happened. That's the short version of what Bleachers is all about, anyway. On the first album under that name, Strange Desire, Antonoff does indeed attempt to capture the equally tortured and triumphant nature of Hughes' movies, and high school itself, but he's not stuck in the past.
Ironically enough, Jack Antonoff's side project, Bleachers, is a lot more fun than the more famous band, fun., for which he plays guitar.
Bleachers - Strange Desire review: Perhaps the fullest-sounding and most charismatic indie-pop album you’ll hear this year, just in time to become the defining sound of your summer.