DECIDE by Djo // deluxe limited edition 2024 Record Store Day Black Friday vinyl
Happy Record Store Day! One of the records I was looking forward to the most for this Black Friday event was the deluxe pressing of Djo's 2022 sophomore album DECIDE. Djo is the alias for actor Joe Keery, who is best known for playing Steve Harrington in Stranger Things, as well as roles in Free Guy and Fargo, among others. He is one of my new favorite artists that I discovered this year, I absolutely love everything about this album.
DECIDE focuses on Joe's deepest existential thoughts, his perception of life and relationship with fame in the digital age. Much of it was definitely written through the lens of the pandemic as well, which was an isolating and introspective time for many. His prominent influences on this record include artists like Daft Punk, Tame Impala, Devo and The Talking Heads, to name a few. Some of the instrumentals throughout sound straight out of a Nintendo video game too, which is such a cool reference to be drawing inspiration from with an album like this. Each song creates such a bold and colorful world within it, there is really nothing else like it.
Djo's breakthrough into music came with the incredible song "End of Beginning", which went viral earlier this year and became one of the biggest songs of 2024, despite it being initially released almost two years prior. It's kind of ironic that it became the huge viral hit that it did, as much of this album focuses on his disdain for social media. "End of Beginning" was inspired by his time living in Chicago while in college and playing in a band called Post Animal. This was just before everything in his life changed following his role in Stranger Things and moving to Los Angeles. In an interview with Variety, he said it's "...about what it means to grow up and look back at a section of your life and kind of yearn for that, but then also to have a deep appreciation for what happened". I think in a lot of ways many will be able to relate that sentiment to their own lives, that nostalgia for a version of yourself that no longer exists is such a specific and complicated feeling that he captured so beautifully with this song.
"End of Beginning" is overall quite different than the rest of the album, it's kind of an outlier in that regard, but it also feels like the heart of DECIDE at the same time. This album really does take the listener to really surprising and unexpected places throughout, making it impossible to categorize it by just one genre. He embraces a sound that is simultaneously surrealist and experimental, while also evoking a strong sense of nostalgia with prominent 80's synth pop influence. This retro futurist sound is something that is so unique and captivating to listen to. Every song is so fun and really showcases how charismatic Joe is as an artist and performer. There is truly not a single dull moment on it. Djo is one of the artists that I truly believe is the future of music and will go on to become one of the new defining sounds of the decade.
The exclusive Record Store Day pressing for DECIDE was limited to 2,000 copies. That is a generally quite low quantity compared to a lot of RSD releases, but thankfully there was still two copies available at my local record store when I went! This is absolutely one of the coolest and most creative vinyl packaging designs that I have ever seen. Every single design detail really matches the aesthetics and vibe of this music so perfectly. Visually, this album is brought to life through the record design in a way I have never seen before. I don't think any other record in my collection has ever captured the sound of the music in such a physical way ever before.
It is housed in a die-cute outer sleeve with the original album cover on the front, with the back cover featuring the track list on images of Magic 8-Ball dice. That outer sleeve slides out to reveal a stunning holographic alternate cover underneath. I love the bright galaxy design used in the background, as well as the super shiny inner gatefold. It was hard to capture the holographic effect, but trust me, it looks even more stunning in person! There is so much detail to every aspect of this packaging, I love it so much. It also comes with a special illustrated poster, which is a fun addition too. This pressing is also the first to feature a deluxe track list, with two additional instrumental tracks beginning and ending the album.
The best part of all is the picture disc vinyl inside! Side A features an image of the Magic 8-Ball from the cover, with the fortune dice reading "Spin Me". Side B has an image of Joe on it that makes it look like he's stuck inside the Magic 8-Ball. It reminds me of the cover of Paramore's This Is Why album cover. Every single aspect of the design is so detailed and so creative, this is absolutely one of the coolest in my entire collection. It really does set the bar so high for every other artist's record packaging and how expansive the tactile music experience can be.
On the opening song, "Runner", Joe continuously repeats the lyrics "Love and hate decide, money grows and dies, people never change, but I have to try". That verse feels like the thesis behind the entire album - despite it all you just have to keep pushing through and try. The intensity keeps building into the end with a perfect transition into "Gloom". That's one of my favorite moments of the entire album, it's so weird and fun as he channels his inner David Byrne. "I Want Your Video" is similarly a really funky 80's synth pop infused track, just like "Gloom". An aspect of this album that I love so much is how perfect his delivery is on every single song. He tends to change his vocal inflections too given the mood of each song, so no two performances on this record are the same. "Gloom" and "I Want Your Video" are among my favorite moments on the album for that very reason.
A recurring theme throughout DECIDE is his relationship with social media, as well as a commentary on our collective addictions to our phones. A lot of anxiety can come from being constantly exposed to everything in the world at all times and how disingenuous it makes us at times. A lot of the perspective he is writing from is also rooted in his experience as a public figure too. "Fool" seems to have been written from that place of feeling like a jester that is nothing without an audience. The production and his vocal performance are both so dynamic and funky, it's one of the best moments on the entire album. I also love how he says, "look into my eyes and baby whisper...fool".
On "Half Life" he gets very existential about it all with trying not to care about the public's perception of him, but inevitably becoming obsessed with how he's being perceived. "I fight the urge to search my name, there's a better me I swear, but curiosity..." he sings in the opening lines of the song. The main takeaway is that we will only ever see a fraction of a person through what they present themselves as online. With "On and On", Joe writes about the cycle of endlessly doom scrolling on social media, specifically written at the height of the pandemic. "It was written in the summer of 2020 when all things felt wrong in the world," Joe wrote in a fan Q&A. "Just came from a place of being sick and tired of all this well-wishing on the internet after countless tragedies. Just felt like this empty white noise and then the news cycle would focus in on the next thing. It comes from that frustration."
I never heard a song like this before, there is something so cathartic about it and also so entrancing in the way he repeats "on and on and on and on..." throughout the entire chorus. The song then builds up to the explosive bridge, the climax of the album. He sings, "Your family is in our thoughts, our heart goes out to you, say a prayer, light a digital candle and then scroll away, something is about to break, the fault line has been fractured, maybe it's not too late to learn how to love each other". The entire bridge is so sharp and direct and is performed with such urgency. By the end of the song, it goes back to the way it started with endlessly scrolling on and on and on again. "In my phone, it's my world," he sings.
The entire album goes on such an emotional journey as many of the songs find him reckoning with his newfound fame and trying to find a balance between normal life and his outward persona as a public figure. On "Figure You Out", he seems to start to understand himself better in that way, but there is still so much unknown. "Is the memory really mine? Is the story I told just fake? How can you get to know yourself?" he sings in the second verse, "If the monеy just wasn't there and the powеr you had was gone and these people were just like you, tell me, then, would you lend a hand?"
There are many moments that take a more abrasive sound with the electronic productions, I really love the overall unrefined maximalism he goes with throughout much of DECIDE. I love the way that is specifically done with songs like "Change" and "Go For It", which are so captivating to listen to as well.
"Climax" is one of the strongest moments of the record too, I love how all of the trippy psychedelic sounds correlate to the surrealist story he is telling lyrically. "'Climax' was one that came together in the studio, by killing another song and frankensteining it into what you hear now," Joe wrote in a Q&A. "Wrote all the lyrics there very quickly probably later in the evening. It’s funny the song is totally different but it’s about the exact same thing." I interpret it as him describing the feeling of being physically stuck in a state of sleep paralysis and seeing an older version of himself at the door. He doesn't quite recognize who it is in that moment but has a sense of déjà vu at the same time. He says it is "something new, an older me I met before", which is such an interesting lyrical contrast.
The entire album goes on such an emotional journey lyrically, but ends on a much more optimistic note with "Slither". "But I'm workin' to it, I can't wait for it, we all wanna be someone at the end of the day," he sings, "It's movin' faster, it's comin' closer, it's gettin' nearer, I'm feelin' older," he continues in more of a robotic monotone voice. After all of the introspection explored throughout DECIDE, Joe starts to find a balance between those two sides of himself. Ultimately, he decides to keep working toward his goals despite the chaos of it all. If this album were a movie, it would be the song playing in the ending credits. At just under two minutes long, it perfectly closes out this record.
When Joe first started releasing music under the name Djo, he was able to maintain his anonymity for a bit with this project despite already being a household name through his acting career. Someone in his position could have gone in the complete opposite direction when making the transition into pursuing music. He could have easily capitalized off of the name recognition of something as massive as Stranger Things is, but he didn't at all. While it wasn't necessarily a secret, Joe took a very intentional approach to separate those two parts of himself to allow the music to find it's audience without having any preconceived notions, be it negative or positive, before even hearing it. DECIDE really speaks for itself in every regard, it is such a masterpiece from start to finish. The way the listener becomes immersed into the universe created within each song is like no other. He pulls from a varying range of influences within this music and always finds a way to make it all his own in such an innovative way. The evolution of where he is going to go from here with the music is going to be so exciting to see in the coming years.
Thanks for reading! Record Store Day was so much fun this year, my dad and I had such a great time visiting all of the local record stores in the area. This year also marks exactly ten years since I went to my first Record Store Day, when I got my very first vinyl on Black Friday in 2014. It has been such a fun tradition that we look forward to going to twice a year! If you would like to read more about the other exclusive records I picked up this year, check out my review of Billie Eilish's isolated vocal version of HIT ME HARD AND SOFT, as well as Noah Kahan's Town Hall: The Stick Season Collaborations. Check out my other Record Store Day posts from previous events here & more vinyl posts are linked below.
Make sure to support your local record stores and shop small when you can!
All photos are my own!
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