Charlie Puth makes what I’d like to call “guilty pleasure pop.” By that, I mean pop music that is sleekly and professionally made, but whose cheugy songwriting would make you a little embarrassed if anyone caught you listening to it. Some examples include anything by Meghan Trainor, Bruno Mars, or the millennial-optimist musicians that dominated the radio and shaped the sound of the early 2010s: Walk the Moon, Of Monsters and Men, Andy Grammar, American Authors; you know the ones. I may have standards as a critic, but I’m not above saying that I sometimes find myself secretly, confoundingly compelled by these kinds of songs. Call it a morbid curiosity or a yearning for the wholesomeness of the pre-streaming, pre-social media era, they scratch the same itch in my brain that an episode of lowbrow TV or a campy movie do. Everyone needs a dose of uncomplicated, normie art to offset the headier stuff, and Puth just happens to be someone who falls squarely in that former category—and arguably excels at it.
Ever since I first heard and saw the video for “Marvin Gaye,” a paradoxically mortifying and compulsory earworm, I’ve found myself inexplicably drawn to Puth’s cornball earnestness. Even with the buttoned-up, ultra-saccharine cheese that slathered that song and the rest of his 2016 debut Nine Track Mind, I was endeared and fascinated by how much he came off like the sole straight boy in the high school musical theater ensemble whom everyone has a crush on: hot, dorky, and annoyingly talented. Thankfully, investing in Puth’s stock paid off when he pivoted toward R&B-tinted pop on 2018’s highly underrated Voicenotes and blew up that sound to arena-sized heights on 2022’s Charlie. He might not have the deepest opinions on movies and his name might be used often as an ironic reference, but his dedication to his craft and clear knack for constructing catchy melodies, famously out of random objects, proves he’s still a creative voice worth recognizing.
That’s especially true on his fourth record Whatever’s Clever!, a bright and bouncy pop album that finds Puth on a more thematically mature and sonically refined wavelength than before, despite what the playfully snarky title might imply. Gone is the syrupy balladry of “One Call Away” and the humid pettiness of “Attention”; here, now, is “Changes,” where Puth contemplates the exciting and anxiety-inducing shifts of adulthood and impending parenthood over a lively Toto-esque beat and a gospel choir straight out of Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror.” It’s not explicitly mentioned in the song, but the track’s video alludes heavily to Puth’s expectancy as a father—he’s dressed like a sitcom dad, dances with claymation instruments, and shows off his wife Brooke Sansone’s pregnant belly—and the swirl of emotions around such a milestone hangs over much of the record.
Though Puth still clings to the comfort of pop tropes, there’s a looser, more open-hearted and confident energy here that suggests he’s getting a lot better at finding a niche that suits his heart-on-his-sleeve sensibility and attuning it to where he’s currently at in life. Rather than fixate on the intense weight of responsibilities that come with being a parent, Puth embraces assuming such a role with an engaging optimism, going so far as to animate Whatever’s Clever! with the lush, soothing, dad-core soundscape of late ‘80s/early ‘90s pop. There’s twinkly keyboard glides (“Changes”), funky bass (“Beat Yourself Up”), lounge jazz (“Don’t Meet Your Heroes”), gurgling synths (the excellent, Ravyn Lenae-featuring bop “New Jersey”), and tons of saxophone, some of which is provided by the maestro himself Kenny G (“Cry”). While the stylistic pastiche might seem a bit one-note and played out, Puth’s sincerity and lack of pretension ultimately shine through, especially with help from mega-producer hitmaker BloodPop, whose versatile touch supplies Whatever’s Clever! with an accessible, invigorating charm.
Some of Puth and BloodPop’s flourishes pay off hugely, like on the album highlight “Love in Exile,” which employs a heavenly guitar chug, propulsive drum/synth beat, and some fun assistance from yacht rock legends Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins. Puth also recruits Japanese singer Hikaru Utada for the cozy “Home,” a beguiling choice that initially feels out-of-place but slinks naturally alongside Puth’s quivering falsetto when the tune transforms into a duet. Even more sentimental contributions like “Hey Brother” and the Coco Jones-featuring love ballad “Sideways” somehow work, partly due to Puth’s pure-hearted drive but mostly because of how well his impeccable, refined production and rousing crooning disguise some of the mawkishness. He still can’t quite help himself when it comes to penning goofy lines (“I don’t want to walk on the boardwalk / When you said to me, ‘I’m bored’”) and emotionally broad romantic gestures (“You’re the one who makes this house a home”), but for every lyrical cliché, there’s plenty of irresistible grooves to get totally lost in.
Considering the self-assurance on display, it’s a bummer Whatever Clever! ends on a couple of clunkers. Penultimate track “Until It Happens To You” contains a totally baffling, deeply distracting, wholly unnecessary spoken-word contribution from Jeff Goldblum that sinks the song’s appealing, Phil Collins-sounding instrumentation almost instantly. Equally egregious is the acoustic closer “I Used to Be Cringe,” where Puth’s on-the-nose reflections on how the humiliations of his past have shaped him are ironically quite cringe themselves, even if such bald-faced vulnerability is the point. Still, even with Whatever Clever!’s slight missteps, what sets Puth apart from his contemporaries is a gumption to keep growing and find inspiration in the world around him rather than simply rely on the same formula and sound again and again. And given where he started, Puth’s artistic arc seems to be bending in the right direction. [Atlantic]
Sam Rosenberg is a filmmaker and freelance entertainment writer from Los Angeles with bylines in The Daily Beast, Consequence, AltPress and Metacritic. You can find him on Twitter @samiamrosenberg.
