Yungblud has revealed that he nearly scrapped his fourth album, IDOLS, after outside voices tried to steer him off course.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone AU/NZ, the UK artist – real name Dominic Harrison – says he started writing IDOLS in January 2021, right after his second album, Weird, snagged his first UK #1. But as commercial pressures mounted, the record got shelved.
“Everyone had an opinion about what Yungblud should be and what Yungblud should do next,” he told Rolling Stone AU/NZ. “I think you can tell when music is trying to be commercially successful because it’s shorter, it’s hookier, it’s a little bit more vapid. It’s a little bit easier to eat, you know what I mean? That was never my idea.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the now 27-year-old admitted, “I let go of the reins a little bit” and shifted his focus to his 2022 self-titled album. Though it topped charts worldwide, Harrison admits, “It wasn’t what was true to me.”
“When you’re going in with songwriters, you have seven people a week telling you where you should go next,” he said. “So as much as there were great songs on the album, and I loved that album, it did really well, I always will tell the truth. On that album, the first iteration of Yungblud was over.”
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The turning point came last year at Bludfest, the festival he founded to make live music more accessible. “I went away and I really was like, ‘It’s time to finish the album. It’s time to finish IDOLS,’” he said.
Unlike before, IDOLS was crafted solely with long-time collaborator Matt Schwartz. “When you make an album from your heart and not from your head, the opinions don’t matter because it came from within me and I made this for me,” he said.
Yungblud’s IDOLS is out now.
