If you’re a “The Fast and the Furious” fan, you’ll remember the tear-jerking ballad “See You Again” from the “Furious 7” soundtrack when we said goodbye to Paul Walker. That song put Charlie Puth on the map, his sweet vocals and gorgeous piano-playing complementing Wiz Khalifa’s somber lyrics.
While the song was an instant career-maker, it seemed to rush Puth's creative process into something that wasn’t necessarily the trajectory he was aiming for.
After its release, Puth came out with his “Nine Track Mind” album, which was a solid debut even if it was filled with the standard unrequited, angst-y love song format that’s aimed at a certain type of listener. His team-up with Meghan Trainor gave us “Marvin Gaye,” which, yes, is admittedly a little kitschy and not for the masses, and he followed that up with songs like “Dangerously” and “Some Type of Love” that toe the line between soulful and adolescent.
But Puth is breaking out of that narrative with “Voicenotes,” his newly-released sophomore album. He’s got some interesting featured artists on there -- James Taylor and Kehlani among them -- that show he’s looking to get away from that mainstream sound that female popstars like Selena Gomez gave him in the past.
As someone who started his career on the backs of jazzy covers of pop songs on YouTube, Puth has incorporated some of that sound into this new track listing. We’re also getting some Ed Sheeran vibes from him here, as the album is quite literally named for the app that he did a bunch of personal recording on.
“'Voicenotes' is more me because it’s inspired by the music I grew up listening to: jazz and R&B,” he told People.
His lyrics have matured, aiming more for the tougher parts of relationships and life in general that steer clear of the shallow “I like her but she doesn’t like me” story. Naturally, there are a few lovelorn tunes on the new album, as I can imagine that navigating your love life as a suave 26-year-old Grammy-nominated singer is fairly taxing, but he talks about relationships with a substance that wasn’t there in the past.
There’s an extra grown-up vibe behind a good amount of the tracks too, like “The Way I Am” and “Through It All.”
Unhandled
He’s made it a point to be more honest with his music this time around, to display his personality in a way that “Nine Track Mind” didn’t allow.
“It wasn’t what I was going through. I wasn’t in love, and that’s why these songs didn’t sound right; it took some acting to perform those songs,” he said. “I was unapologetically myself in this album. I was just tired of faking it.”
Puth isn’t a Jesse McCartney or Aaron Carter, and he’s making sure to shed that almost-persona he was nearly pushed into. He’s putting out music that’s relatable without forcing relatability. Though I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve shout-sang his early stuff while driving with the windows down, you can tell that he’s trying something new here that anyone can get behind.