The Aussie foursome have fun with their past while continuing to play with darker sounds on Everyone’s a Star!
The initial life spam of a multi-headed teen-idol entity tends to be brief, often dissolving in a morass of wounded egos and waning fanbases. Not so with the Aussie foursome 5 Seconds of Summer, who have been around long enough that their breakthrough single — the sledgehammer-hook-enabled 2014 cut “She Looks So Perfect” — balances its lustiness on a glimpse of a young women in American Apparel knickers. Initially pitched as a pop-punk act with hooks and looks that’d please One Direction fans, the group pivoted to moody, club-ready pop with 2018’s Youngblood and sustained that vibe through their more grown-up years.
With their sixth album, 5SOS (as they’re known by their “fam”) have fun with their past while continuing to play with darker sounds. Take “Boyband,” which rides a “People Are People”-echoing synth thrum as the four members throw darts at the stereotypes placed on them (“Boy in a boy band/ Imaginary boyfriend/ Irritate the metalheads”) in boy-bot monotones, or the electro-glam stomper “No. 1 Obsession,” which flips the crush-object script placed on them by so many to extreme levels.
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It’s not all metacommentary, although their musical choices show how they’re more than ready to break out of whatever boxes they’ve been placed in over the last decade and a half. The stadium-ready “I’m Scared I’ll Never Sleep Again” is a shimmery love song with massive guitars (although using “your ‘90s face” as a compliment kind of gives its game away), “The Rocks” channels its anxious energy into balancing jaunty rhythms with despondent lyrics, and “Ghost” is an admirable stab at a modern power ballad, with weepy slide guitars and a shoegazing breakdown heightening its drama—no mean feat for a song that mentions a totaled Porsche. “Not OK,” meanwhile, is an homage to the dance-rock fusions of Gorillaz’ pumping “Feel Good Inc.” (Calum Hood’s verse in particular channels Damon Albarn’s blasé burr) and Prodigy’s manic “Firestarter,” although its tribute — and portrayal of being in the song’s titular state—would have benefited from a slightly more uncontrolled gang-vocal exclamation.
The history of youth-craze projects is littered with brightly burning stars that fell to Earth once they hit the five-year mark, but since their formation in the early ‘10s 5 Seconds of Summer have made the transition to generationally agnostic pop stars with a wide-ranging musical curiosity and a keen sense of self-awareness. They may not be reinventing the wheel on Everyone’s a Star!; but their humor and musical restlessness make it a breezy listen.
