weird! is out December 4th via Interscope Records
With weird!, his highly-anticipated sophomore album, Yungblud wants “young people to feel like they’ve got someplace to belong no matter what they might be going through.” Aptly titled, the visionary artist unveils an album that champions inclusion, individuality, and that being yourself is not a sin. It’s an album for the “weirdest years of our lives in terms of gender identity… sexuality… love” as seen by previously-released singles, “cotton candy,” a track about sexual liberation, and “mars,” a song about a transgender teen in Maryland.
The record highlights current events, deep personal emotions and relationships, and a collection of stories the British artist has experienced or heard while touring the globe and meeting fans. Poignant and focused, weird!, is empowering, chaotic, high-octane, and an eye-opening look into the development of Yungblud’s powerful songwriting and introspection.
Releasing the follow-up to his breakout debut album, 21st Century Liability, has not come stress-free, with Dominic discussing the pressure he’s felt sharing a record that’s entirely different from his first. Though its creation has been equally rewarding and liberating, with the artist sharing, “the more confident you get telling the truth, you don’t hide anymore.” Especially during this weird! time of life; Yungblud’s album and its message could not arrive at a better time.
Since April, the English rocker has teased fans with what’s to come, first dropping the title track, “weird!” followed by the innuendo-filled songs “strawberry lipstick” and “cotton candy.” While “god save me, but don’t drown me out” is an emo anthem for the ages, one of the album’s standouts is definitely “mars,” and its support for the trans community.
Discussing the song’s backstory over Zoom, Dominic shared, “Mars is about a young trans girl who approached me in Maryland. She told me this story about how her parents and everyone around her just couldn’t understand that she wasn’t a boy; she wasn’t their son; she was a woman. This young girl told me she saved up and studied hard so she could get her parents to a YB show because she thought ‘maybe then people might see other kids like me.’ So her parents came to a Yungblud show with her, and they saw people exactly like her, from every walk of life, being proud and energetic and having that reluctance to be anything other than themselves. The parents accepted her as their daughter.” Is there any life on Mars? If so, I hope they’re listening to Yungblud’s new album.
weird!’s cover art is as experimental and fascinating as the music. “I wanted the album cover to be a piece of art that initially you would want to have in your room that says a million things at once and says different things to whatever person is looking at,” Yungblud shared exclusively with Soundazed. “With it – it represents the idea that all of us, each and every one of us are ten different people at any one moment and we all have ten different sides to our personalities, and if we make peace with those people inside us, that’s when I think we figure out who we are. You can wake up being a completely different person than you were yesterday, and that’s not something to be ashamed of; that’s just something about identity and something about the way we perceive ourselves and the way we think and the way we grow, and the way we exist. I wanted it to kind of relate to all of those different parts of people’s personalities.”
On a lighter note, the cover itself was inspired by the movie “This is England,” which is described as a coming-of-age film, just like weird! Creating the artwork required the crew to work on it for three days straight as every shot needed to be with the same natural lighting.
Although COVID-19 has changed everyone’s year, Yungblud has remained fully engaged with fans while working on his album, unveiling “The Yungblud Show,” weekday pub quizzes, arranging FaceTimes with fans, and more. Now, as weird! makes its debut, the young rocker is once again delivering an unforgettable experience by performing geo-locked livestream concerts of his album for fans around the world. In addition to 2021 festival spots at Mad Cool, Leeds, and Reading, the artist is currently scheduled to kick off a Life On Mars Tour across the UK, Europe, and Australia. See all dates here.
Yungblud’s coming-of-age sophomore album, weird!, is out on December 4th via Interscope Records.
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