Antonoff’s music is so over-the-top in its embrace of peppy ’80s pop and new wave, it’s easy to get lost in the romance of a line like, “I’d rather be sad with you than anywhere away from you” (“Wake Me”), without seeing how emotionally desperate it is. Strange Desire, Bleachers’ debut album (out next week, July 15), loosely adheres to a juxtaposition that made The Cure and The Smiths beloved among bummed-out teens long after they matured into maudlin adults: happy music, sad lyrics. His debut single as Bleachers, “I Wanna Get Better,” is a synth-powered jolt of perfect power-pop with lines like, “Put bullet where I should have put a helmet” and “I didn’t know I was broken ’til I wanted to change.” The song’s video hammers home the self-help and mental illness themes: Antonoff plays a therapist dealing with others’ depression while navigating his own. To steal a phrase from Drake himself, they “own that shit” - Antonoff, 30, perhaps to the most extreme heights.
Which brings us to the less edgy space occupied by Sheeran, Smith, and Jack Antonoff (who performs solo as Bleachers and plays guitar in Fun.), young men who don’t need to be drunk sexting with exes to admit their depression. In that way, he’s the male Lana Del Rey, the ultimate Sad-Girl Pop Star: millennials relate because they identify with the edgy “emotional mess” brand, on and off social media. But it never really had a poster boy in pop music until Drake started emoting all over the track on 2011’s “ Marvins Room.” He’s transitioned more towards Sad-Boy Pop with each confessional album (2013’s Nothing Was the Same is the greatest emo-hip-hop album since Kanye West’s Sad-Boy phase, 808s & Heartbreak). Male crying has remained a hot-button topic even as societal gender roles have loosened. One Direction will gladly take Bieber’s old fans and boysplain what makes them beautiful. He moved from baby-faced acoustic strummer playing to the fragile emotions of tween girls (see: “One Less Lonely Girl”), to a sexualized pop-R&B star with a fetish for leather sweatpants and rap assists (not unlike his mentor, Usher). The most obvious heir to Timberlake’s throne, Justin Bieber, may be sad - given his acting out against the law in recent times - but that’s not reflected in his songs. Still, it was progress: the biggest male pop star on the planet built a chorus around crying. Although Timberlake tossed in a few more proto-Sad-Boy piano ballads (“Still On My Mind,” “Never Again”) on his debut solo album, 2002’s Justified, they faded into the background as Timberlake rebounded sexually all over the record (see: “Rock Your Body”). It’s an oddly empowering lover’s quarrel put to song, with a chorus that’s built on the notion that Timberlake has cried enough - now it’s Britney’s turn. But he’s not exactly what we’re looking for as far as Sad-Boy Pop goes.ĭespite its vengeful bitterness, “Cry Me a River” is perhaps the only true Sad-Boy Pop hit Timberlake has offered up. Still, while his solo songs are mostly devoid of the Sensitive Guy Vibes that abounded in *NSYNC (and most boy-band) ballads, Timberlake can be as mushy as John Legend (see: “Mirrors”). Look to AC’s top male artist, Justin Timberlake, for a prototype of the modern male star and you’ll see romantic bliss and, well, sex. For as uplifting their love songs can be, some of their biggest hits - “Fix You” and “The Scientist” - are depressing as hell, and their new (breakup-inspired) album, Ghost Stories, only cements their place as OG Sad-Boy Pop.
Sadness needs to be a recurring theme in the lyrics and/or feeling in the music. There needs to be tears - stated or implied - but the artist can’t just throw out a mournful piano ballad here and there like Elton John or Lionel Richie. But while nice guys, sensitive dudes, and tender declarations of love are part of the Sad-Boy Pop equation, they’re not quite the same thing. Even Robin Thicke is sad these days, going from “I know you want it” to “I’ll wait for forever for you to love me again.”Īdult Contemporary, the light-touch radio format where pop hits go to retire, historically deals in Nice Guys, from James Taylor to Jason Mraz. Sonically, they couldn’t be more different, but they’re united by their embrace of the melancholy amidst a genre marked by its blissful frivolity. He may be alone emotionally, but Sheeran and a few similar chart-topping artists - like Sam Smith and Bleachers - are together in redefining what it means to be a solo male star in pop circa 2014. In the larger context of mainstream music trends, the acoustic strummer falls under the heading of Sad-Boy Pop. “It’s alright to cry, even my dad does it sometimes,” Ed Sheeran urges towards the end of X, an album that’s so shrouded in Nice Guy Syndrome that Sheeran deserves his own tackily named subgenre.
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