{"id":370057,"date":"2026-03-28T16:22:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/370057\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T16:22:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:22:21","slug":"charlie-puth-on-baring-it-all-with-his-new-album-whatevers-clever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/370057\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Puth on Baring It All With His New Album ‘Whatever’s Clever!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tCharlie Puth is, objectively, busy these days<\/a>. In October, he released the Phil Collins-indebted \u201cChanges,\u201d the delectable first taste of his fourth album \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever!,\u201d out today. He chased it with a pair of eight-show residencies at the Blue Note in Los Angeles and New York, followed by a milestone performance of the National Anthem at the Super Bowl last month. Amid it all, he released a handful of follow-up singles including \u201cCry\u201d with Kenny G and \u201cHome\u201d featuring Hikaru Utada. It feels poetic, somehow, in the grand scheme of things, that he announced the birth of his first child with wife Brooke just three days before \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever!\u201d arrived.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd it\u2019s why Puth, 34, takes any chance he can get to sneak in his steps. In early March, he logged onto Zoom to discuss the album with his camera propped on top of a walking treadmill. \u201cI saw my friend who used to run this label had a slow treadmill,\u201d he tells Variety. \u201cIt was like at a stand-up desk. I was always very jealous of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAs he chats about the record, his head bopping up and down with each step, it becomes clear that free time is an increasing rarity these days. When he last had the luxury of taking his time, it was while making \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever!,\u201d a project that he describes as \u201cyacht rock 2026\u201d but has a wingspan that stretches across sultry R&B, city pop and gospel. Before that, he estimates, it was in 2006.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI didn\u2019t have the luxury of time on the last three albums,\u201d says Puth. \u201cWe always had a song out for the masses that was \u2018doing well,\u2019 and then I had to play catch-up. Almost do reverse artistry. I was happy with the results, and I\u2019ll play those songs for the rest of my life. But this is the first time that I have had just a few months to sit and tell the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever!,\u201d the singer \u2014 an artisan who\u2019s carved a space in pop music as its resident scholar (on social media, he hosts a \u201cProfessor Puth\u201d series breaking down music theory) \u2014 settled into a more mature niche, embracing the sounds of the past while infusing them with the chamelonic chord shifts and song structures that have come to define him. It\u2019s Puth at his most visionary, creating an album as smart as it is digestible, boosted by executive producer BloodPop (Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga) and featuring a diverse array of musicians including Coco Jones, Ravyn Lenae, Jeff Goldblum, Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins.<\/p>\n

\n\tPuth will have to make even more adjustments to his schedule as he readies for his upcoming arena tour, kicking off on April 22 in San Diego before making stops at New York City\u2019s Madison Square Garden and Los Angeles\u2019 Kia Forum. Still, he says, he\u2019s trying to savor every moment as it comes.<\/p>\n

\t\tThere\u2019s a very specific sound to \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever!,\u201d and like always, you clearly put a lot of care into the music. What was the process of writing and recording this album?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI think what was at times most challenging for me and interesting for me in a way to go about writing this album was just how unmusical it started. We knew we wanted to make 12 songs, me and BloodPop, but we didn\u2019t start with the chords, we didn\u2019t start with sounds. We started with the topic of what we wanted to talk about. It\u2019s not the easiest thing for me to do to talk about what I\u2019m going through. Even with my closest friends, there always has to be a little bit of sound playing in the background. So it\u2019s easier for me to get the emotion out if I have a piano or a drum beat playing in the background. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut I believe that\u2019s why these songs ended up the way they ended up, because it\u2019s hard to write a song called \u201cI Used to Be Cringe\u201d and just talk about growing up in this music industry and making wrong decisions at the time and dying my hair blonde and just acting silly, but it\u2019s just a part of growing up. It\u2019s hard to do that, but it was worth it because this happens to be my favorite album I\u2019ve ever made.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tYou collaborated with Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins on \u201cLove in Exile,\u201d and their sound really inspires this album. What made you want to subsume yourself in those sounds?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019ll never know why\u00a0I reach for things musically. I just happen to be here in this time of my life. I\u2019m not gonna write records like \u201cAttention.\u201d I\u2019m gonna perform them and I\u2019m very happy I get to perform them, but that\u2019s not where I am right now. And I feel like I\u2019d be doing my fans a disservice if I just did what I did a couple years ago. I don\u2019t think I\u2019d grow as an artist and that\u2019s quite boring.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tWhat inspired you to write an ode to your home state of New Jersey as a kiss-off?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you read the title before even hearing the song, it was very important for me for people to see the title and wonder why there is a song called \u201cNew Jersey.\u201d And they hear it and it\u2019s a West Coast, \u201cChronic,\u201d \u201cDoggystyle,\u201d Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre era, Eazy-E sounding beat, like G funk kind of song. But it\u2019s about pretending that you don\u2019t love your home state just because you had a breakup there five years ago. It\u2019s a song about being in denial and it\u2019s a little absurd, too. It\u2019s like what, you\u2019re gonna ignore the entire state of New Jersey just because you can\u2019t drive by somebody\u2019s house anymore? It\u2019s the slap in the face, get over it kind of song. It\u2019s meant to be a little kitschy.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou brought up \u201cI Used to Be Cringe,\u201d and it\u2019s a self-reflective note to end the record on. It made me think of songs like \u201cLA Girls\u201d and \u201cBoy,\u201d which capture you at a very particular moment. How has your relationship evolved or changed with those songs in particular?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI think I\u2019ve definitely changed as a person. I love \u201cBoy.\u201d That might be one of my favorite songs I ever wrote.\u00a0It\u2019s one of those songs that everything started as an accident, but then became a happy accident musically, just by accidentally dragging over the main synth line and having it weirdly syncopate with the 16th note hi-hats, whatever. I love that song. <\/p>\n

\n\tBut that\u2019s a song that I wrote when I was 26 and I felt at the time that I wasn\u2019t being taken seriously by somebody. As a young man, I was hot-headed and I wanted to prove them wrong. I should be taken seriously. I\u2019m pretty cool, is what I would tell myself. But I\u2019m thankful for those songs because I don\u2019t think there would be \u201cI Used to Be Cringe.\u201d I don\u2019t believe I would have ended up singing in that way and about that topic had it not been for those songs that preceded it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019re talking about really personal stuff on \u201cWhatever\u2019s Clever!,\u201d opening up in ways that may be new for your audience and maybe even yourself. How do you push yourself creatively to allow yourself to open up to people in this way?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tI needed someone to push me because in all honesty, I like making songs by myself, but I always feel that the best work comes from me when there\u2019s a different brain in the room. And to pay compliments to BloodPop, he really pushed me to make an album like this. I believe I haven\u2019t opened up to my fans like this. Maybe there\u2019s a couple songs on \u201cVoicenotes,\u201d but the main concern on \u201cVoicenotes\u201d was still to make pristine-sounding pop, which was what we accomplished on that record. And I wanted things not to be so pristine on this fourth album. I appreciate you saying that they\u2019re detail-oriented songs. I believe they are too. And I like the way that they\u2019re mixed, but you listen to a song like \u201cChanges,\u201d in production terms, it\u2019s slammed. The waveform is one giant waveform. It\u2019s not the most dynamic song, but it\u2019s meant to be a little rough around the edges mix-wise because that\u2019s the emotion. I didn\u2019t want to remove the emotion.<\/p>\n

\t\tYou\u2019re coming off a run of huge milestones. The Super Bowl was obviously huge. There was a moment when you put your hands on your head. You look like you just can\u2019t even believe that this is happening. What\u2019s running through your mind as the jets are going over your head and you\u2019re finishing the song?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy I had that reaction was, I was just so stunned by how perfectly musically it was executed on behalf of the Oakland Choir and the orchestra that was on the field with me. The planes flew over right as we all hit the D major chord. In all honesty, I was like, wow, I cannot believe that synced up so perfect musically because not to get too symbolic, I feel like the music is perfectly lined up in my life right now. This album is my life. And call me crazy, but when I heard that plane fly over and it hit the D major chord, it just reassured me that everything is musically perfect right now.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tIt was one of those performances that people watched,\u00a0and it reinforced for them that Charlie is really that dude. What did you see as the reaction to how people received it?\t<\/p>\n

\n\tMy father-in-law called me and was like, everybody is talking about you at the Stop & Shop. That\u2019s how I knew that the band and I, my team and I, everybody, we\u2019ve graduated to a new level, which is what I aspire to do for the rest of my musical career because if more people hear my voice and more people hear my music, it\u2019s just gonna inspire them to pick up an instrument and wanna perform themselves. Yes, it\u2019s nice to be recognized, but I don\u2019t do it for that. I do it to reach out to the future musician in hopes that they\u2019ll wanna do what I do.<\/p>\n

\t\tA lot of big moments, as you well know. Super Bowl, Blue Note shows, new album, having a kid, going on an arena tour. That\u2019s a lot. So how are you coping with all this change and these milestones at once?\u00a0\t<\/p>\n

\n\tHonestly, it\u2019s hard at times. My goal is to never lie. And I would be lying if I said that everything was perfect. Nothing\u2019s ever perfect. It\u2019s definitely gonna be a challenge to embark on a tour as a new father. There\u2019s gonna be times when I don\u2019t get to see the baby, which is gonna be tough on me. Believe me, I already have songs written about it, but I\u2019m so grateful for the strong bond that I have with my family and now extended family. I\u2019m very lucky because I know that\u2019s not a common thing. And I believe that\u2019s what\u2019s gonna get me through this tour. And on a lighter note, we bought the big headphones for the baby. And maybe I\u2019ll see the baby from the stage. I look forward to it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlie Puth is, objectively, busy these days. In October, he released the Phil Collins-indebted \u201cChanges,\u201d the delectable first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[41602,93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-370057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-charlie-puth","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}