EVERYONE’S A STAR! is the sixth installment in 5 Seconds of Summer’s discographic constellation. Wrestling with the blinding lights of flame, guiding lights of love and the heights of vice, our favourite boyband are skyrocketing on this record.
It’s a trademark tongue-in-cheek exploration of stereotypes with lyrical motifs that drive their conviction to chart the course of an insomnia that swings from the glossy adrenaline-fuelled to the grit of emotional torment. EVERYONE’S A STAR! is pop-rock with flecks of electronic production and experimental edges. It’s transcendent – the album package lives up to the headline. At 36 minutes long, this album is a lightning run, the entire record you’re bracing the turbulence with the reward of a total sonic soar.
The album opens with the title track, and in the first moments, we’re offered a peek behind the curtain: “he went in the booth / didn’t get any notes wrong / that’s the story we’ll tell.” Is it the undeniable recollection of pure talent or the polish of ego? The instrumentation leads the forefront of the track, with vocals layering into ascension that show the pull into the orbit of stardom – your own identity, or somebody else’s. “Livin’ in the glitter, baby, I don’t feel a thing / Everything is better when I don’t know what it means” warns of the incoming headspin of ‘NOT OK’. This track showcases insane drumlines and a ripping guitar solo, punctuated by tyre screeches and distorted cheers that get you buzzing on the adrenaline of fame and how close you can get to the dangerous frontiers without veering. “On the edge, you make me wanna jump / jump / jump.” Loud and clear, the boys declare “hey / I’m not okay” while also relishing in feeling invincible, a proclamation that breaks and slurs in the final seconds.
The inevitabilities of love are laid out on ‘Telephone Busy’, “I thought about it, wrote about it,” “I pulled that tarot card / that one with the mystic heart … good things come to those who wait, okay.” Unfortunately, the lyrical relatability doesn’t lend itself to emotional availability – the prechorus driven by vocals straight from The Gorillas’ booth: ‘“You’re just uncomfortable being with someone who’s good for you” / ‘She says it’s just my nature and she says it like I’ll never change.” The varied vocal production on this track amplifies and overanimates the performance, part of an overcompensation for the avoidance of the maturity that emotional intimacy demands. It’s an effective distraction, impossible not to bop along to the grungy funk of the chorus and the interplay of the earworm schoolyard rhyme “miss me, miss me, now you wanna kiss me.”
On ‘BOYBAND’, 5SOS reclaim their famed image by playfully immortalising all the tropes that afford their successes the spotlight: “Love me when I’m skinny and we never, ever age / Same four chords but it never feels the same.” The charged track is a light-hearted rage-bait for critics (and metalheads), as the boys ‘make that monkey dance’. As for the fans, it feels like a self-fulfilling prophetic irony that their play into the puppetry makes us love them even more. The relationship to audience and fame arguably escalates on ‘No. 1 Obsession’. With musical arrangements leading with a pounding claustrophobia and callbacks to the familiarity of hits like ‘Youngblood’. It’s numbness, vice, distraction and consumption. The spiral of obsession blows beyond stardom and pierces the personal, with validation also being sought through media algorithms and romantic relationships.
The curtain drops unexpectedly on ‘I’m Scared I’ll Never Sleep Again’, where the untouchable rockstar facade wears to a vulnerable core. The stream-of-consciousness ballad delivers spoken-word vocals from Calum: “Waiting for a phone call on the East Side / And that was my fault / I was wishin’ I wasn’t so drunk.” Here, 5SOS lay out a candid showcase of their incredible ability to raise emotional stakes so supremely through their instrumental builds and vocal layering. It’s a rumination that spans three tracks across ‘istillfeelthesame’ and ‘Ghost’, fleshing out an emotional stagnancy that may be more perilous than the heights of fame, let alone when they coincide. On ‘istillfeelthesame’, confessions are dropped with haste as if the urgency is the only propeller through fears of opening up. This track digs its heels in the sand of authenticity as the hourglass runs out, flipping the weaponised accusation of ‘never changing’ in ‘Telephone Busy’ to wave flags of commitment in efforts to summon home the one slipping away. ‘Ghost’ is a slowed reverb track that casts the shadow of twin flames on the verge of extinguishing. It’s angelic and it’s painfully resigned to the realisation of the fatal familiarity, “I don’t want to fall asleep because I’m afraid of what I’ll see / I can’t look you in the eyes cause I’m afraid it looks like me.” ‘Ghost’ is also home to an absolutely stellar instrumental. It montages a lifetime in its aural kaleidoscope – the crowning jewel of EVERYONE’S A STAR!
‘Sick of Myself’’s self-loathing sears an unforeseen energy into the narrative. Though contrarian, it’s an uplifting, refreshing reprieve of escapism. There’s still an inability to face oneself with recurring admissions of being unable to ‘look myself in the eyes’ disguised through major guitar riffs and a big leaps headfirst into codependent possibilities. ‘Evolve’ sees a full-force return of the boys’ star personas. It’s self-awareness in full-honesty, “I wanna do drugs I wanna make love, I wanna get f*cked.” It’s accountability for the classics: sex, drugs, rock and roll and emotional immaturity, backed by science with an authoritative interlude recounting how “girls tend to mature one to two years earlier than boys” and how “as a result, it is considered that girls are more ready to learn.” Despite this, the final two tracks on EVERYONE’S A STAR! spotlight an endearing connection. ‘The Rocks’ is a triple entendre and finds strength in a productive emotional tumultuousness. “I can tell you’re lost / I can see you’re reeling,” “I tell you I’m lost,” “throw myself onto the rocks to make you feel less alone.”
Connection in the pits of emotion paves the way for the solace of the closing track, ‘Jawbreaker’. The buzzing percussion line teases precarity as it outpaces the vocals until the chorus, where we soar with synth keys. It’s an optimistically peaceful sonic scape that melts away the harsher edges of the record, without depleting their stellar energy. EVERYONE’S A STAR! is absolutely revving – it’s self-aware, charged, and trades off the highest levels of persona with the deeply personal.
Catapult to the heights of stardom and dodge the glare in the house of mirrors. You can stream the deluxe version of EVERYONE’S A STAR! (Fully Evolved) now.
