British music artist Will Joseph Cook hits the Spotify charts with ‘Be Around Me’. Released in September, the infectious single has gone viral worldwide. In Asia, the track has been placed in Spotify’s Viral 50 Charts in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.
On TikTok, the song is having a moment with creators all over the globe joining in on the fun with over 751K unique videos created, and it’s also been trending on Shazam.
Speaking of the song, Will shares,
“The song is about those moments when you’re teetering on the edge of falling for someone, the transition between playing it cool and showing vulnerability. I wanted it to be flirty but still have these bouts of nervous energy jumping out. The initial spark for the tune came from a craving to write something really pacey. So I cranked the BPM to 165 which very literally gave it this really frenetic flow. Basically for me, it sounds like how falling for someone feels.”
‘Be Around Me’ is accompanied by a dizzying Wes Anderson-esque music video, directed by Bertie Gilbert.
The track continues in the trend of Will’s feel-good, trademark summery indie pop, heard in his previous single ‘Something To Feel Good About’. The more introspective and surreal Driverless Cars”, released earlier this year was our first taste of his forthcoming album.
The album ‘Something To Feel Good About’, scheduled for release on 27 November, is the gloriously off-kilter indie-pop follow-up to Will’s 2017’s critically-acclaimed debut ‘Sweet Dreamer’.
While ‘Sweet Dreamer’ was the soundtrack to a fairly carefree teenage life, album two, written and recorded in LA after a difficult few months, charts the life of a young adult trying to figure it all out.
He explains,
“One of the themes of the record is living an optimistic and loving lifestyle in the shadow of either something big and existential that everyone’s feeling, or just personal worries you’re struggling with.”
In many ways, a sense of searching for answers forms the heart of ‘Something To Feel Good About’, in a way that continues Will’s passion for idiosyncratic pop melodies but underscores it all with real heart. Despite its joyous exteriors, every song on this album is underscored with melancholic gratitude, highlighting just how fragile good times can be.
Says Will,
“I can communicate with music better than I did before. I knew what sounded good, and what I liked to do melodically, but then in terms of something with an emotional connection, that happened more on this album. Releasing through my own label Bad Hotel has also been really exciting, it’s definitely opened a lot of doors to more creativity and self-expression.”
Will Joseph Cook is one of the UK’s brightest young talents. Still just 23 years old, Cook has been developing his uniquely multi-dimensional songwriting since he was just 14. After signing his first record deal aged 17, his debut album ‘Sweet Dreamer’ arrived to great acclaim in 2017 and a follow-up EP ‘If You Want To Make Money’ arrived barely six months later. Following a hectic few years, he took some time off and went travelling, before settling back down to write the batch of songs that form his second album. He dropped two new songs, ‘The Dragon’ and ‘Hey Brother’, last year alongside a string of intimate live shows, including a sold-out London Omeara performance.
Pre save/Order the new album here.
Something To Feel Good About Tracklisting
- Be Around Me
- Something To Feel Good About
- 10X MORE FUN
- She Likes Me
- Wayside
- Driverless Cars
- DOWNDOWNDOWN!
- 21
- Only If You
- Boundary Street
- Where Is My Heart?
- Last Year
Cover photo: Liam Evans
