The Dare took some time out of his Lollapalooza weekend to sit down with Rolling Stone for “Song Shuffle,” which uncovered the producer and DJ’s love for Kacey Musgraves and his thoughts on how Justin Bieber could have improved his new album, SWAG.
After hitting shuffle on his playlist, the first song to pop up was Musgraves’ “Velvet Elvis.” While calling Musgraves’ Grammy-winning LP “one of the greatest albums of all time,” The Dare admits that the Presley-referencing track isn’t his favorite.
“[It’s] a very playful and slightly more dancey one, I suppose,” he says. “I used to listen to it, driving around in the Pacific Northwest a little bit, and I feel like it was kind of a gateway drug into country music for me a little bit. I think my favorite on Golden Hour is ‘Mother’ or ‘Love Is a Wild Thing.’”
He adds, “I love the whole record. I think it’s pretty incredible front to back.”
Then came “405” from the new Bieber record, which he thinks “could have done with a little bit of editing.”
“I actually just listened to the album on a flight back from Japan last week in full. I fell asleep at some point during it. It could have been the jet lag. It could have been the soothing, soulful sounds of SWAG,” he says. “Or some combination. But I enjoyed some of the first half, I liked the singles ‘Daisies’ and ‘Yukon.’ But it’s a really long album, and unless records sort of have a conceptual edge to them, I typically don’t love albums that are over 12 to 14 songs.”
According to The Dare, the sweet spot for an album is anywhere between nine and 14 tracks. “I think the run time is under forty minutes. I don’t think the actual run time is that long on SWAG, I think it’s pretty short, just lots of tracks.”
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The Dare — who is set to release his EP Freakquencies: Vol. 1 later this month — also tapped through songs by Royal Headache, Dream Caster, and Jarvis Cocker, before opening up about working with PinkPantheress on her song, “Stateside.”
“Vicky is awesome. We have good banter. Working with her is very fun and easy. There felt like a lot of like nerves flying around the first day… you know the good kind where you’re productive and excited to just be in the room just working on stuff with somebody,” The Dare says. “We just became pen pals sort of, and got the song finished while I was on tour in the U.S… She’s the best.”
