I was 14 years old when the words “To think everything must die for anyone to matter” first reached my ears. And when they reached them, they built a home and never left.
I was 14 years old when I first listened to the album that changed my perception, experience and overall outlook on the musical world and my 14-year-old angsty life as a whole. The voice responsible for that irreversible shift was Jack Antonoff.
Jack Antonoff is not only the lead singer of his band, Bleachers, but he is also the songwriter and producer behind some of the top albums of the last couple years; his influence seemingly contagious in 2019 especially. He has been magnanimous to the music industry in producing a lot of the overplayed radio hits, as well as some of our favorite alternative albums.
After months of nothing but Strange Desire (that became the soundtrack to my whole high school experience), I took a further look into Jack Antonoff to see what else I could attain from him. Come to find, he was first the guitarist and drummer in Fun, who perfomed the 2012 hits, “Carry On” and “We Are Young.” His influence in the pop industry only spread further from there.
With that being said, if my bedroom walls could talk, they would probably tell me to stop playing Melodrama by Lorde and Norman Fucking Rockwell! By Lana Del Rey. “Cinnamon Girl” is for the rough days, and “Perfect Places” is for the ones filled with light. The thing that connects these two iconic albums isn’t just the fact that they never get old, but the fact that Jack Antonoff is the mastermind producer behind both of them.
Jack Antonoff’s influence goes much further than the bedroom walls of my adolescence. Other hit albums produced by him that cross the boundary of pop and dive into rock and rap include Masseduction by St. Vincent and ARIZONA Baby by Kevin Abstract. Additionally, he also contributed to Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2019 album, Dedication, which was one of the catchiest pop albums of 2019 after her long four years without releasing music.
On top of these, Jack not only had a hand in Taylor Swift’s past three albums but possibly a whole arm. Once you know his musical style is characterized by a lot of ‘80s style beats and a token saxophone solo, you can’t unhear his influence. Jack Antonoff was responsible for co-writing a total of eight songs and producing eleven on Swift’s most recent album, Lover.
Antonoff has been the man behind the curtain in almost all the albums we listen to that make us feel like the star of an indie coming of age movie. It’s not a coincidence that he, or the projects he has contributed to, collectively have fourteen Grammy nominations. One of these includes Album of the Year in 2016, which Taylor Swift took home for 1989. Although these nominations have only produced four wins, a lot of these albums have changed our lives.
Jack Antonoff’s overall influence is overlooked and underrated when taking a magnifying glass to the music we play in our headphones every day. His work is etched into the music and lyrics that know how to make us feel some type of way, and he deserves more recognition for his impact.
All images courtesy of Shane Timm.
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