Aidan Bissett’s debut album ‘shut up and love me’ explores the trials and tribulations of needing human connection. Since going viral in 2020, the LA-based musician has accomplished quite a bit – and he’s not done yet.
Stream: ‘shut up and love me’ – Aidan Bissett
In the spring of 2023, I took my brother to see Valley on the Lost in Translation Tour.
While I’m a massive Valley fan, there was an ulterior motive: Proving that I was a cool older sister because I went to concerts for work.
During the opener’s set, I turned to my brother and said, “Wait, I know this song. I didn’t know it’s by him.” I loosely gestured to the guy on stage.
My brother shook his head. “No way,” he said. “That guy is too famous. It’s got to be a cover.” I shrugged in agreement – it was the first I’d heard of Aidan Bissett.
It was, in fact, Bissett’s song: “More Than Friends,” a track with nearly 96 million streams. At the time, it was a crowd of 2,000 singing along. Just two years later, crowds of 5,000 are singing along.
Before the release of his debut album, shut up and love me, Bissett has accumulated over 1.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify. If you’ve listened to his music before, his rapid success comes as no surprise.
“For a long time, I didn’t feel ready to, or had enough to say, to put out an entire album,” he tells Atwood Magazine. He’s released several singles since “More Than Friends,” including two EPs.
Bissett toyed with the idea of turning his most recent project, Supernova, into a full-length album, but “something just didn’t feel right.” He explains, “I really wanted to make sure that when the time was right, it was something that felt like a whole project rather than a bunch of singles thrown together.”
shut up and love me, released July 25 via 10k Projects / Capitol Records, explores a need for connection in 13 tracks. While the project largely indulges itself in alt pop and indie rock, Bissett’s influences are clear.
“I’ve always loved band-style music. It, for some reason, feels very free to me,” he says. “There’s just something about bands, maybe because I grew up on it.” Although he is a solo artist, Bissett often highlights touring drummer Fionn Roche and guitarist Grant McManus as “the greatest show on Earth” online.
Bissett describes band music as “tastefully shit.” It’s a compliment. Growing up, Pink Floyd, Queen, Led Zeppelin, and AC/DC occupied every speaker in his home. His father’s love of music held his attention from a young age. Bissett’s first CD was Coldplay’s Parachutes; the project unlocked complexities of genre and sound beyond guitar rock.
“There’s a lot of mishaps here and there. Everything’s not perfect,” Bissett explains. “I think that’s what makes it human. I think I’ve always been drawn to that because I never wanted anything to be incredibly perfect.”
At its core, shut up and love me is about the humanity of a relationship. The lead single, “are we in love yet?” was released in March 2025, five months before the album. It was the first track written for the project, predating his 2024 EP “Supernova.”
Bissett didn’t know what to do with the song when he initially wrote it, but he knew he’d created something special. He revisited the track when he began thinking about making an album.
“A friend of mine always says that sometimes when you make stuff, you’re ahead of yourself or you’re ahead of your own taste,” he says. “It’ll catch up to you in the future. I definitely feel like that’s what it was.” It was a natural focal point of the album, giving listeners insight into a longer, more narrative-based Aidan Bissett project for the first time.
I’m just so kissable
But it all just feels so miserable
When you call talk so subliminal
Like you do
Red dress so criminal
In my head in bed so physical
Every move you make so minimal
If I’m honest
The hardest thing to do
is to pretend that I’m modest
Would you want me to bite my tongue?
And I’m so terrified
We won’t get this right
I wanna know
Are we in love yet?
The album begins with “reading into it,” a playful track about the early stages of being involved with someone new. The instrumentals emit the flirtatious excitement of a new beginning, drawing listeners into the story Bissett tells.
The song’s hazy piano intro lends itself to being the album opener. “It feels very free, and it thrusts you into the project,” he explains. “I always love a long intro that kind of starts an album, weirdly.” He praises producer Andrew Wells for bringing his vision to life.
“The album ends with a very introspective two tracks,” Bissett says. “I think it opens the question of human connection and how far someone’s willing to go to find that for themselves. What’s the healthy line? When and where do you cross it?”
The final track “bloodtype” highlights Bissett’s vocal capabilities alongside orchestral harmonies. The lyrics express Bissett’s understanding of his own limits and of those around him. The song leaves Bissett vulnerable in the most heartbreaking and genuine manner.
In the last five years, Bissett has embarked on national and international tours as both an opener and a headliner ahead of his Shut Up and Love Me Tour this fall. Most recently, he joined Chase Lawrence’s former band COIN on tour in Fall 2024 as an opener.
“Chase [Lawrence] has been a mentor of mine since I was 18, and I’ve learned a lot from him specifically,” Bissett says. In addition to touring with him, Lawrence has produced some of Bissett’s work like “I Can’t Be Your Friend” and “People Pleaser.”
The biggest takeaway for Bissett is believing the words you’re saying on stage. He’s played small rooms to large concert halls, but the COIN tour allowed him to witness a relationship between artist and audience in a new way.
He lights up as he speaks, his admiration for Lawrence and live performance clear. “It didn’t matter if they [COIN] were having a bad day. They just got on stage, and you could tell that they felt every single word that they were pouring out,” he says. “I just have a lot of respect for that.”
Bissett first debuted in July 2020 with his single “Different.” One more single was released before “More Than Friends” took over TikTok.
In preparation for shut up and love me, Bissett expanded on the influences of his early projects. Modern bands like The 1975 and COIN hold a special place in his music. The Blue Nile’s use of synth and Peter Gabriel’s expression through guitar, alongside other ‘80s music, stuck out to him during the production of shut up and love me. A lot of the guitar and synth are pulled from David Bowie too, who Bissett has been a lifelong fan of.
“Sometimes I’ll hear a sound and be like, ‘Oh, that’s awesome. Let me see if I can incorporate something like that,” he says. While his lyrics are incredibly catchy, seamlessly blending pop hooks with rock instrumentals, Bissett still finds himself to be more sonically driven.
“It’s hard for me, personally, to just get on a guitar and write,” he says. “Any time I do that, I just end up writing a Bob Dylan song, and I’m like, ‘This is not what I wanted at all.’” He laughs and ensures that he is a fan of Dylan, but he doesn’t envision himself singing folk songs with a harmonica.
Much of shut up and love me is derived from Bissett’s personal experience.
The project enabled Bissett to learn “about this addiction with connection” and placing himself or others “in harmful positions, emotionally.” Instead of writing a “breakup album” of sorts, Bissett explores the pitfalls of emotional investments in the space between a relationship and first meeting someone new.
Early in his career, a majority of Bissett’s social media content revolved around promoting his music with little outside of that. “I was putting so much pressure on social media, because we’re being told that it is the end-all be-all, and you can’t be successful without a viral sensation,” he says. “On this project, I learned to be like, ‘You know what? It’s me pressing a button and after that, it’s out of my control.’”
Bissett’s current content varies from comedic stories to life updates, in addition to promotional content. “I’ve just kind of like taken all the pressure off,” he says. Bissett started a second TikTok account too, where he shares content like most other 20-somethings.
“There’s no way to control social media at all. It’s kind of just like when the finger is pointed at you, maybe that’s your time.”
Now more than ever, creatives are at risk of burnout due to simultaneously having to make art and market their art. “That feels like a job,” Bissett says of having to promote his music while also making his music. “I think that’s why I brought in the more personality stuff.”
His shift towards personality-based content on social media encouraged him to pursue novel means of marketing his music.
To him, social media is a tool for world building.
“You can’t be an artist if you don’t have a world,” Bissett says. He pauses and laughs. “I mean, you can, but you’re going to get memed on.”
The world of shut up and love me feeds into the welcomed anxiety of human connection. An Instagram page named after the album’s lead single features Bissett and others spray painting words and phrases around Los Angeles.
Bissett notes there’s an element of “convenience” for LA as the backdrop. “I feel weird being like, ‘Hey, can somebody go [spray paint].’ Because it’s illegal, you know what I mean?” He says half-jokingly. Rather than request his friends commit felonies across state lines, he enlists them to create other content for the project, whether it’s spray-painting words to look like they’re “from Tumblr” or sending videos of them “making out.”
Shut up and love me explores human connection through a modern lens, with Bissett’s experience the focal point.
Although the bits of his life that he shares online are often comedic, whether it be commentary on the most recent season of Love Island or the horrors of dating in your twenties, followers are quick to relate. It translates seamlessly into the weight of the project, ensuring how genuine the conversation and narrative of shut up and love me is to him.
Bissett hopes the interpretation of the album remains broad, allowing listeners to capture elements that feel personal to them without his own opinion of the project getting in the way. “I think that’s the beauty of music in art in general,” he says.
While Bissett’s accomplishments are impressive – 400 million global streams, 1.6 billion views – it’s his artistry that lends itself to his continued success. In an age where empathetic authenticity is overshadowed by trends, Bissett has built a world where connection is encouraged, questioned, and thoughtful in shut up and love me. It solidifies Bissett’s leading role as a force in the digital age of music.
Stay updated with Aidan Bissett on Instagram and TikTok. Get tickets for his tour here. His debut album, shut up and love me is out July 25. Listen to his music here.
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© courtesy of Capitol Records
© courtesy of Capitol Recordsshut up and love me
an album by Aidan Bissett
