On his new single Bad Day, Justus Bennetts makes moving on sound like a block party. And considering how damn catchy it is, it might just start one.
Justus Bennetts comes to us from the rain-soaked city of Seattle, and despite Bad Day‘s gloomy sounding title, it’s one of the most sunny things to emerge from the birthplace of grunge in quite some time.
Bad Day leads with its hook, and is gone before you even realise your head’s nodding along. Its got an infectious energy that goes a long way in explaining why Justus Bennetts has risen, seemingly out of nowhere, with alarming speed.
His music has already proven a massive hit with the TikTok crew, amassing over 40 million views across the network. Bad Day‘s short runtime seems primed to take advantage of that audience’s attention spans, but the music itself has enough strength in its legs to stop people from tuning out. Make no mistake, this track leaves an impression.
Justus Bennetts’ vocal style falls somewhere between rapping and singing, benefitting from a winning sort of arrogance that recalls the mania of Hobo Johnson without the subsequent depression. It won’t be for everybody – but pretty much anything worth the tape its recorded on isn’t.
For some reason, the track also reminds me of a certain brand of SoCal punk. There’s almost a sneer to Bennetts’ delivery, which does a good job telegraphing the sentiment behind Bad Day.
Bennetts describes his new single as being “about anyone that had ever done us wrong”. However, he wisely chooses to lean into a more universal approach, forgoing the sort of specific details that could have turned Bad Day into a diary entry. By writing broadly he allows the track to transcend his own experiences, inviting listeners to impart their own frustrations into the context of the song.
What this does is inject Bad Day with some much appreciated positivity and fun. Rather than getting bogged down in life’s bullshit, it encourages everyone to pick themselves up, and as Modest Mouse once famously put it: float on.
And while you’re floating, you could do a lot worse than Justus Bennetts’ Bad Day for a soundtrack.
Bad Day is out now via Friends Support Friends / Virgin Music Australia. Stream or purchase the single here.
