Charlie Puth Has Stopped Overthinking the Music Thing and is Leaving Room for the Divine

Everyone and their mother has heard of who Charlie Puth is and his mythical perfect pitch ability that oftentimes gets reduced to a nifty little party trick at his press appearances, which we understand if he shrugs his shoulders about.

And we're sure you've seen him sing the tear-jerker of a national anthem performance at the Super Bowl and Taylor Swift announcing him as sir-needs-to-be-a-bigger-artist.

Esquire Philippines got to pick his encyclopedic brain on knowing when to let someone else take the wheel in crafting a song, the current meta of intentionally low-fidelity/gritty work, and the five records he would bring with him if he were stranded on a deserted island.

ALSO READ:

Steve Lacy Might Have the Song of The Season With "the feeling"

Why James Blake's New Album 𝘛𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 is Exactly Where We Are

For a man that has the whole every note discernible to the human at his disposal more accessible than the average Joe Schmo, how does he actually know when to stop tweaking and mixing a certain audio stem or adding a fiddly plug-in?

"You still have to leave enough room to let God in. The extra oomph that isn't part of any mathematical equation. It's just life," he told Esquire Philippines in a virtual interview.

"You have to know when to stop adding hi-hats."

While the perfect pitch thing is neat and all, it's not something mandatory when you're in the studio trying to put your soul into a particular project.

He confesses that he doesn't really fancy himself someone who's a particularly good producer behind the board, just a guy who knows where the sounds fit in the computer.

There are communities out there of digital audio workspace whiz kids who can work on 500 different tracks at the same time and know every plug-in like the back of their hand.

But what sets Puth apart is his knack for allowing his songs to lay out avenues for people to express themselves without being pedantic about music theory and technical impressiveness.

"If you want to make a song that's going to help people explain themselves and feel understood, you want at most four sounds and the meaning to be really vivid," he expounded.

Let's call his approach to songwriting and music production the "four-sound theory," or limiting yourself to exposing the listener to four memorable sonic signatures that they would ultimately get and relate to.

Puth is inevitably going to be grounded in the classics from the worlds of jazz and pop music from varying zeitgeists.

Though, the only records he would take on a desserted island would be Short and Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter, The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift, Aja by Steely Dan ("came out in '78, really great record"), Thriller by Michael Jackson as "a reminder of what music should sound like"; and James Taylor's greatest hits, which he calls his favorite album outright.

We also talked to Puth about the new school kings of the music space: Mk.gee, Dijon, and even the divisive rock band Geese.

All these acts are founded on the ethos of purposefully tapping into gritty, raw, lo-fi sounds, which have shaped the current popular music meta, with even pop stars like Justin Bieber adopting this sound profile. Does Puth plan on experimenting with these "imperfect" production styles?

"If I did it, it doesn't really line up with my life right now. I like listening to it when they're doing it because it aligns with their life," he responded, commenting on these rawer forms of production.

"The moment something aligns with my life is when I'm going to musically find something that matches with it.

If I do the lo-fi thing that they're doing, it's just people are going to be like, "Why would I listen to this when I can listen to the people that are actually going through it?" I feel like people can tell."

In March, Puth dropped his fourth studio LP, Whatever's Clever! which is another new era for the pop star as he produced a project that heavily leans into that ever-popular 80s sheen that even great such as John Mayer have favored in tracks like "Last Train Home" and "Wild Blue."

An aural gander at Puth's standout tracks like "Changes," "Home," and "Sideways," and his collaborations with Japanese music icon Hikaru Utada and other greats like Kenny Loggins (and even Jeff Goldblum) would show how special he still is as an artist. He hasn't really had the best rap critically with mixed reviews of his previous records because of perceived derivativeness.

This new yacht-rock, city-pop proclivity from Puth, which is reminiscent of stuff from a stellar outfit, Prep, is definitely his most cohesive record to date and the most mature creatively he's been.

"What matters is it feeling real. If it feels real, it's going to be compelling to a listener," said the artist.

READ MORE:

Why James Blake's New Album 𝘛𝘳𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 is Exactly Where We Are

Prep on Screamin' and Cruisin' Through Sadness with Blissful Melodies