Djo's “Basic Being Basic” Tackles the Superficial With Psychedelic Flare

Djo rejects materialism while embracing life’s idiosyncrasies on “Basic Being Basic,” the lead single off his upcoming third studio album, ‘The Crux.’

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Stream: “Basic Being Basic” – Djo

I don’t want your money, I don’t care for fame; I don’t wanna live a life where that’s my big exchange…

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In an era consumed by media and gorging opinions that influence much of who and what we are, can we fault ourselves for being so basic?

For Djo, actor Joe Keery’s musical pseudonym, we are at fault for being our own worst enemy and need to be called out for this keenness to societal monotony. His latest release “Basic Being Basic” is the first single off his forthcoming third album, The Crux, and he holds no sympathy for the oddity that is materialism – one of the many sentiments he’d previously made well known in his 2022 album, DECIDE. Rather, he maintains life’s idiosyncrasies as something of worth. Perhaps, even a commodity we should embrace.

Get food, barely eat
Every bite just kept me glued to my seat
I worried, even cried
How’d it feel to take the light from my life
Bad habit, even worse
50/50 I’m a sucker for looks
Asked for it, here it is
A quick example ‘cause you wanted the hits

album art for Djo's third studio LP, 'The Crux' — album art for Djo’s third studio LP, ‘The Crux’

The song instantly proves itself as an eargasm in waiting, carrying an electrically psychedelic beat that goes above and beyond simple pop notes. It intertwines a drilling low-pitched bass with an electric keyboard that cascades throughout the song; all collectively coming together with synthesized vocals that drone on in a head-nodding, foot-bopping way. He sings of the indispensable evils of social media in the line, “Get food/ Barely eat/ 50/50 I’m a sucker for looks,” and calls out the ridiculousness of attachments to such idly crafted images.

The song is textured and gushingly raw as he sings in this monotonous animation. It’s a cadence that conveys in his lyric delivery as well, and one that sustains itself until the first verse’s end.

I think you’re scared of being
Basic
That’s ironic cause it’s like
reading like you’re even more
Basic
It’s not funny, it’s so funny
Cause your basic
Just looking hot and keeping monotone
and understated nothingness won’t
Change it
(Good luck with that)
(Good luck with what?)
It’s not funny, but it’s so funny

As the chorus begins, the tone shifts in its own bubbly, electrically dynamic way– as if laughing while addressing the superficial expectations of social media and the collective’s leaning to non-individuality. This recurring concept of “being basic” is not only meant to be a descriptor of society today, but rather a personal fear of going against the larger medium– borne from yearning to find connection and authenticity in an inauthentic reality.

Djo is “scared of being basic,” and finds no better satisfaction of draining that fear than by calling out others who expect this “nothingness” from him and from themselves.

The song welcomes a new musically complex and lyrically introspective era for Djo following the immense success of his 2022 track, “End of Beginning.” Rather than bedroom recordings that rely on synthetic textures, isolated vocals, and simple sequencing, his upcoming album, The Crux, is more elaborate, lush, and instrumental. It’s almost reminiscent of ‘70s pop and “Basic Being Basic” is the perfect encapsulation of the era’s playful, electrically polished sound.

I don’t want your money
I don’t care for fame
I don’t wanna live in life
where’s that’s my big exchange
I want simple pleasures
Friends who have my back
Everyone has secrets
But not everyone can fool
a man like that
It sent me reeling
Still not the same
It’s like my capacity to love
and give has changed
I guess I’ll thank you
And spite your name again
The past’s the past and I’ll outlast
the hate to find real love that’s not pretend

He defiantly sings, “I don’t want your money, I don’t care for fame. I want simple pleasures, friends who have my back,” with spirit and wit balancing his relationship with self-resilience and community. He’s reeling from this outside demand of being someone that he is entirely not. He grapples with fame and its expectations, convoluted assumptions, and heartbreak. At this point of the song, Djo’s retaliation against “being basic” is painfully personal. He wants to untether his life from these stoic convictions of self– urging for some semblance of individuality and true, deep connection from those closest to him.

How basic (sell me on it)
Shuffle numbers pointing fingers
ditching chats in different apps, that’s
Basic (ha ha)
It’s not funny it’s so funny
That’s just basic being
Basic (basically)
You said he looked just like a girl
So you like girls
I guess I’ll take it
Yeah that’s funny, you’re so funny
(ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)

Change your body
Change your face
Curl your hair then make it straight
Take a picture of your plate
Tarantino movie taste
Ra ra cheugy-phobe
Vera Bradley’s back in vogue
It’s a flash photograph
what an empty epitaph that is (that’s basic)
what an empty epitaph that is (that’s basic)
what an empty epitaph
(that’s just basic being basic)
Yeah my tight 5 might get a laugh as is
If that’s funny,
I’m not funny

By the final chorus, he’s come anew.

The music builds like an untouchable, playfully evocative synth-wave and that weight of listed expectations has dissolved under the layered, twangy quality of bass lines and crunchy keyboards. He sings, “what an empty epitaph that is (that’s basic),” an illustration of a facile livelihood centered around material not finding an afterlife.

Djo is no longer afraid of basicness. He admits he will always be anything but and finds that retaliatory humor in being against such mundaneness as, he quotes, “not funny.”

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