The Click (album)

The Click is the second studio album by American indie pop band AJR. It was released on June 9, 2017, via the band's label AJR Productions and S-Curve Records, later released internationally through Ultra Records and Black Butter Records. The album follows the trio's previous work, maintaining a pop sound with elements of hip-hop, electronic dance music, and jazz. It includes a sole guest appearance from Rivers Cuomo of the band Weezer while taking influence from Fun, Twenty One Pilots, Kendrick Lamar, and Kanye West.

It was supported by the five-track extended play What Everyone's Thinking in September 2016, which had the singles "I'm Not Famous" and "Weak". All songs featured on it would later appear on The Click, alongside the singles "Drama" and "Sober Up". A deluxe edition was released on September 21, 2018, supported by the single "Burn the House Down" and including an acoustic version of the band's collaboration with Steve Aoki and Lil Yachty, "Pretender". "The Good Part" was retroactively released as a single in 2021 following virality. Music videos were released for ten songs to promote the album.

Upon release, The Click was met with favorable to mixed reviews from music critics, praising the band's lyrics and production with occasional criticism. Some retrospective mentions of the project view it negatively. The album was a commercial success, staying on the Billboard 200 for nearly a year with support from the high charting and streaming performances of "Weak", "Sober Up", and "Burn the House Down". The album received platinum certification in the US and gold in Canada with over two billion Spotify streams.

Background
AJR released their debut studio album Living Room in 2015, with three extended plays leading up to the album: AJR (2012), 6foot1 (2013), and Infinity (2014). The second of these featured the single "I'm Ready", the band's commercial debut. While they wrote Living Room, the band additionally wrote material for a hypothetical second album, citing an intention of different sound as their reason for not releasing the songs. One of these was "Let the Games Begin", which released as a single later in the year.

Writing and production
A majority of the album's music was written and produced in the band's living room in Chelsea, Manhattan, emphasizing that they weren't "inhibited by studio costs and other writers and producers", while also stating that it was occasionally overwhelming to manage aspects such as production and mixing without any professional capability. Following the release of "Call My Dad" in 2015, a song written about the band wanting comfort from their father, "I'm Not Famous" was the first song written for the album. Its concept was born from the band's response to fan inquiries about their newfound fame following the success of "I'm Ready" and their debut album Living Room (2015). From the same EP, "Turning Out" was written with the narrative of feeling the experience of growing up but without having reached adulthood, and "No Grass Today" states the band's disinterest in weed and a refusal to smoke while not condemning any users of it.

"Come Hang Out" came from lead singer Jack Met often receiving texts of the same name and denying the requests, focusing on his musical career instead. The song served as inspiration for the titling of The Click and overall basis of the album's theme, with the band creating "Weak" after. "Weak" was written during a single day of songwriting, taking influence from Fun and Twenty One Pilots. Its success as a single led to Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer, contacting the band. There was mutual admiration between the two, which led to them collaborating to create "Sober Up", with Cuomo contributing the bridge to the song after receiving an unfinished version from AJR. "The Good Part" was written while AJR opened during Ingrid Michaelson's tour in 2016. Jack began composing the song on the tour bus, making it distinct from the rest of The Click's tracks. It features a sample from Johann Sebastian Bach's Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV 1068, while the chorus integrates a melody from Peter, Paul and Mary's "The Cruel War".

For "Drama", AJR musically took inspiration from Kendrick Lamar's hip-hop style and fused it with their own sound palette, while contrasting the public's focus on celebrities like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift against political concerns for the song's writing. The band described "Three-Thirty" as "a crazy switch-up song", taking inspiration from EDM for it. AJR noted in an interview with Substream Magazine that the demo for "Three-Thirty" is nearly identical to the final revision, with writing and production happening at the same time. "Netflix Trip" was written to generally encompass growing up with streamable media on Netflix, with band member Ryan Met associating his personal experiences with concurrently watched episodes of The Office.

With "Bud Like You", Jack and Ryan took inspiration from a low-quality party they attended and characterized it, stating "a best friend is the person that you can just hate everything with". The band finished by creating "Overture", an overture of the album sampling every song. During writing, AJR tried to mimic the soundscape of American rapper Kanye West's album The College Dropout, later taking inspiration from Disney music and adding violins and trumpets to create an orchestral sound. It's the band's second overture, following a song of the same name from their debut studio album Living Room (2015). During the production of The Click, AJR additionally wrote "Burn the House Down", "Normal", and "Pretender", which would later be included on the album's deluxe version alongside the newly written track "Role Models".

Songs
Various songs on The Click use spokestep, a term AJR uses to refer to a vocal manipulation technique similar to dubstep. It's featured on "Weak", "Drama", "No Grass Today", "I'm Not Famous", and "Bud Like You". "Overture" opens The Click as a medley of other songs featured on the album. "The Good Part" solemnly discusses the band wanting to skip to the best part of their lives. "Weak" has lyrics describing human vulnerability and acceptance with an upbeat pop composition. Jack and Ryan reflect on their time at Columbia University in "Sober Up", encapsulating themes of longing and reminiscence while remaining uplifting. "Drama" observes society's fascination with trivial matters. "Turning Out" is a slow piano-based song, mellowly describing a failed relationship, followed by "No Grass Today" with a cheerful and celebratory instrumental.

"Three-Thirty" is about trying to condense all of a song's meaning into a short time to meet industry standards, with a length of exactly 3:30. "Call My Dad" solely contains Ryan using an electronic vocoder while singing with no accompaniment, additionally interpolating a harmony from "Sloop John B". "I'm Not Famous" lyrically embraces the notion of contentment in not being famous, using jazzy pop instrumentation to accompany it. "Netflix Trip" compares various life experiences to events in the American television sitcom The Office. The song "Bud Like You" uses vocal harmonies remniscent of campfire songs and EDM instrumentation. "Come Hang Out" is the final song on The Click, lyrically discussing the difficulty of balancing social life with personal interests.

Deluxe edition
"Burn the House Down" was created as a response to a request from Morgan Spurlock, director of Super Size Me 2: Holy Chicken!, seeking a theme song. AJR composed a track echoing the sentiments of the political landscape in 2017 and the rising influence of their generation, later becoming an anthem for the organization March for Our Lives. The band wrote "Role Models" as a response to the views of Kanye West, who is a significant influence on AJR's music. The song discusses the difficulty of enjoying the work of an artist while acknowledging their flaws, calling out Kanye West and Louis C.K.. "Normal" is a slow 3-minute piano-based song with Jack singing about the comfort of home versus social obligations. "Pretender" (Acoustic) is an acoustic rendition of the Steve Aoki song of the same name, which featured the band alongside Lil Yachty. The song was initially a scrapped demo by AJR, later receiving new production after being approached by Aoki to collaborate. The song discusses social media facades, contrasting online personas with real-life insecurities.

Other material
"Let the Games Begin" was released as a single on October 23, 2015, via their label AJR Productions. Originating from a demo titled "People Person," the song adapted the style of a sports anthem with the inclusion of a bugle call. It instrumentally uses upbeat electronic elements and features spokestep. The track had a music video published for it, following the rise of a carrot-costumed performer. The song was anticipated to be the lead single of The Click, additionally being featured in promotion for the album, but does not appear on the tracklist. In 2016, AJR made "Enjoy the Show", written for a New York City creativity competition. The song is under two minutes and remains commercially unpublished. "It's On Us" was written by AJR in collaboration with the campaign director of It's On Us, Rebecca Kaplan. After Barack Obama heard "Weak" on Spotify, he invited the band to contribute to the campaign. The song was inspired by stories from sexual assault survivors. It was released as a single on March 31, 2017, with the band donating all proceeds from the song to the initiative. Similarly to "Let the Games Begin" and "Enjoy the Show", the song was not included on any album.

Release
"Call My Dad" was released as a promotional single on December 18, 2015, followed by "I'm Not Famous" as the lead single of What Everyone's Thinking on March 24, 2016, with the EP later releasing on September 16. It additionally included "Come Hang Out", "Turning Out", and "No Grass Today", and "Weak", with the latter being the EP's second single. These two singles later became singles for The Click, with "Drama" as the album's following single on May 12, 2017. The album was released on June 9, 2017, alongside "Sober Up" becoming the fifth single. On March 23, 2018, AJR released "Burn the House Down" as a single. The song appeared on the deluxe version of The Click with an acoustic performance of the featured single "Pretender" on September 21, 2018. "The Good Part" experienced a significant resurgence in late 2021, going viral on TikTok and Instagram Reels. This renewed interest led AJR to re-release the song as the seventh single of The Click on November 24, 2021.

Music videos
Ten music videos have been released for The Click. A music video for "Call My Dad" was released shortly after the single, with Ryan singing in a taxi surrounded by his sleeping brothers. "I'm Not Famous" followed by a video featuring Jack roaming the streets of New York City in a onesie, reinforcing the song's theme. A second music video was released later, featuring Legendary Shots and showcasing the band performing amidst various stunts. AJR performed "Weak" in a New York City subway for a music video directed by Shane Drake, which later became a viral video. "Overture" had a music video released for it on December 15, with the band performing each of the samples in various locations. More videos for The Click were published in 2018, beginning with "Sober Up" on January 31. Throughout it, the band navigates New York City, with Jack encountering and chasing a young version of himself.

A music video for "Come Hang Out" depicting a house party was released in collaboration with Original Penguin on February 7, 2018, followed by a music video for "Burn the House Down" that blends the band's performance of the song with political imagery and a fiery riot. AJR released the music video for "Role Models" on September 25, which showcases the band in a contemplative mood while seated in a minimalist warehouse. A video for "Turning Out" was teased on August 19, later releasing on October 18 with direction by Jack and Ryan Met. The video depicts a developing love interest between two astronauts in space. It had a two-year development, with AJR hiring Pixar interns from a concert in Salt Lake City. After going viral, a video for "The Good Part" released on November 24, 2021. In it, the band performs the song while various home movies are shown.

Sequels
"Turning Out" has received two sequels: "Turning Out Pt. ii" from Neotheater (2019) and "Turning Out Pt. iii" from The Maybe Man (2023).

Contemporary
The album received positive to mixed reviews upon release. Matt Collar of AllMusic lauded the album's "eclectic, hooky pop", highlighting "Weak" for its buoyancy. Atticus Dewey of the Communicator commended The Click for its wide range of topics and genres, finding it primarily positive while condemning the track "Three-Thirty". Canadian critic Mark Grondin of Spectrum Pulse gave The Click a score of 1/10, describing the instrumentation as bland and stating that "it's a record trying to have depth and meaningful swell about a sophomore struggle and yet winds up a contradictory non-statement with no tonal consistency". This criticism was opposed by Jamie Weikel of Reading Eagle, who praised the album for its "catchy pop lyrics paired with EDM-esque beats". WQAQ additionally reviewed the album positively, comparing AJR's percussion and synthesizers to music from American musician Jon Bellion. After its release, "Netflix Trip" was criticized by fans on Twitter for its verses having similarities in composition to Bellion's song "Human" off of his 2014 mixtape The Definition. AJR responded to this with a statement claiming that "Netflix Trip" had been written years in advance, additionally explaining that it was an unintentional result of having similar music styles to Bellion and the same influences such as Kanye West.

Retrospective
The album garnered more critical scrutiny following the release of Neotheater (2019) and OK Orchestra (2021). While reviewing the former, Luke Nuttall of the Soundboard called The Click "a hideous Frankenstein's monster of an indie-pop album patching together clichés and screeching obnoxiousness by the pound". In Thomas Stremfel's review of OK Orchestra for Spectrum Culture, he compared the strong negativity online to "figuratively tap[ing] a photo of AJR frontman Jack Met to a punching bag and ha[ving] a field day". Rebutting this, Armando Padron of the Highway Herald gave The Click a score of 10/10 in a positive review, praising the spirited instrumentation and lyrical themes of growth in "Sober Up" and "Netflix Trip".

Commercial performance
The Click was a commercial success, becoming the band's breakthrough album. It was AJR's first studio album to chart on the Billboard 200, debuting at number 61 and remaining on the chart for 45 weeks. It additionally charted in Belgium for one week at position 170. Within its first two years of release, the album had earned 590,000 album-equivalent units in the United States and accumulated a total of 631.1 million on-demand audio streams for its tracks, reaching two billion streams on Spotify by early 2024. The album was certified platinum in the US and gold in Canada, equivalent to 1,000,000 sales and 40,000 sales, respectively. "Weak", "Sober Up", and "Burn the House Down" each went multi-platinum in the US and Canada, with the former charting in 17 countries after amassing 250 million streams in one year.

Personnel
Credits adapted from the album's liner notes.

AJR
 * Adam Met – bass guitar, backing vocals (1–8, 10–17), keyboards (15–17)
 * Jack Met – lead vocals, melodica, percussion, ukulele, guitar (1–8, 10–17)
 * Ryan Met – backing vocals, keyboards, trumpet, ukulele (1–8, 10–17), lead vocals (9, 11), production, programming (all tracks), audio mixing (1, 2, 4, 7–9, 11–13, 15–17), audio mastering (17)

Technical


 * Chris Gehringer – mastering engineer
 * Joe Zook – audio mixing (3, 6)
 * Tony Maserati – audio mixing (5)
 * Delbert Bowers – audio mixing (10)
 * Drew Allsbrook – audio mixing (14)
 * John Loren – album artwork
 * Chris Cerrato – album design
 * Jon Minor – deluxe adjustments

Additional musicians


 * Alba Avoricani – guest vocals (3)
 * Rivers Cuomo – guest vocals, songwriting (4)
 * Alex Wolff – guitar (4, 17)
 * Alicia Svigals – violin (6, 7, 11, 13)
 * Jake Kenowitz – trumpet (7, 11, 13)
 * Samia Finnerty – guest vocals (13)
 * Drew Allsbrook – guitar (15)
 * JJ Kirkpatrick – trumpet (15, 17)