This article won honorable mention in the 2021 Michigan Interscholastic Press Association spring awards ceremony.
The era of songs like “Treat You Better,” “Stitches” and “If I Can’t Have You” may now be in the past for Shawn Mendes with the release of his fourth album Wonder.
The experimental and refreshing 14 track album takes the listeners inside the mind of the 22 year old singer-songwriter and shows snippets of his relationship with fellow artist Camila Cabello.
We originally saw a sneak peak into the new sounds Mendes experiments with after he released his first single and title track “Wonder” where he contemplates the ins and outs of his life. The beginning of the song is filled with harmonies and a steady beat that builds up the cinematic feeling of the chorus. It’s almost like it could be in a car commercial. Oh wait, it was.
But don’t think that the whole album is filled with the same sound he introduces in “Wonder.” Each song presents a style different from the last. There is truly a track for everyone.
Mendes maintains a perfect balance of upbeat tracks, like “Higher” that gets you on your feet, with sappy ballads like “24 Hours” that makes every girl feel more single than they ever have before.
If it wasn’t enough for the album to have a different sound each song, Mendes switches up the style mid-song in a couple of his tracks.
“Piece Of You” starts out as a piano ballad but suddenly transitions into a bass heavy, catchy song about the jealousy he experiences when other guys try to pursue Cabello. “Look up At The Stars” starts off as a pop-ballad but progresses into a lively song about his fans that helps bring the album to a close.
While most songs were sonically on point, not all songs delivered lyrically.
“305,” even with its infectious beat, doesn’t make up for all the cliche lyrics. And even though the closing track, “I Can’t Imagine,” does bring us back to the acoustic Mendes days, the lyrics just repeat themselves for two and a half minutes.
But between all the cheesy love songs and others that don’t peak my interest, exist a few tracks that touch on deeper topics like missing his friends (“Call My Friends”) and the troubles of being in the spotlight (“Monster.”)
“Call My Friends” starts out with Mendes somberly singing about being alone in an airport while his friends are partying without him. It suddenly jumps right into a hard-hitting chorus where he tells himself he “should call his friends.”
He also touches on this in an interview with Zane Lowe where he mentions that after catching up with a childhood friend who he hasn’t seen in six months, he realizes that “life doesn’t really stop” when he came to realize that his friend has a whole new life now.
In his collaboration song, “Monster,” with fellow Canadian Justin Bieber, the two shine a light on “how society can put celebrities up on this pedestal to watch them fall” according to Mendes in that same interview. The artists question that if they were to mess up, sin or trip, would they be perceived as a “Monster,” alluding to the ideals of Cancel Culture.
All in all, Mendes fan or not, the melodic beats and addicting lyrics from Wonder will be stuck in your head for days.
