In Defense of Nick’s Current Musical Direction
The whole debate about Nick’s current musical direction alienating “real” CJ fans prompted me to make this post. Nick has constantly been evolving his sound throughout the years. His most popular sound, objectively, is the 2013-2015 bedroom pop/DIY era. Unfortunately, the chances of him returning to that style in newer projects is unlikely, but at least fans of this sound have a solid collection of songs to go back to.
However, much like the name of this project, Nick experiments with different sounds and styles based on what his current joys are. My personal favorite era was A Different Age and Voyager — this era felt the most dynamic while being emotionally gripping for me. When Love + Pop came out, I shared many similar feelings with fans of his previous sound. It wasn’t until East My Love came out that I gained an appreciation for Nick’s creativity and his desire to expand his sound with each release.
CJ fans are those who appreciate and respect Nick’s choices to experiment, for they can decide which era and style appeals to them best; anyone can still love an artist even when they don’t like some albums/sounds as much as others. So the argument I’ve seen that his current approach to ROSEBUD will “alienate CJ fans” doesn’t hold any ground.
Now, I do agree that lyrically, “HOLE” didn’t resonate with me. However, I’m excited to hear how he’ll incorporate different influences and references in future tracks; to me, the distortion in “HOLE” juxtaposes nicely with the delivery of the lyrics. With this being his first album released under his own label, he will able to push his creativity into different territories as he sees fit. And even if ROSEBUD as a whole doesn’t click for me when it comes out, I know I still have my favorite albums to return to.
TL; DR — We are all fans of CJ for different reasons, and even if we don’t like everything Nick releases, we can always go back to our favorite singles/EPs/albums.