.jpg)
It won’t surprise you to learn that when, in 2024, Taylor Swift sang that “Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist” on her record The Tortured Poets Department, she captured the attention of…Charlie Puth himself.
“After I heard her say that,” he tells Vogue, “I just went ahead and made an album which I happened to be so proud of.”
After making his name concocting fluffy pop confections (from his 2015 breakout “See You Again” to the radio-friendly “We Don’t Talk Anymore,” the following year), the New Jersey–born musical prodigy decided to change his approach. In recent years, he’s grown his following on TikTok with bite-sized lessons in music theory. And now, with his fourth studio album, Whatever’s Clever!, out March 27 from Atlantic Records, Puth has opened a window into his personal and creative evolution, building on and transforming the kinds of sounds he was raised on. (He’s described the record as “Yacht Rock 2026.”)
Here, speaking to Vogue via Zoom (and, in fact, from a treadmill), Puth breaks down his big appearance at Super Bowl LX, his approach to songwriting, and what it means to be releasing a new album just as he and his wife, Brooke, are becoming parents. (Puth’s son, Jude, was born on March 13.)
Vogue: Audiences seemed to love your rendition of the national anthem at the Super Bowl. What was your headspace like before you went out there: quiet and zen, or taking shots?
Charlie Puth: Well, I definitely wasn’t taking shots. I was really more nervous for everything leading up to it, but once I stepped foot on the field, all that nervousness dissipated. It all just went away! But that’s what music does for me. It’s my ultimate balance. That’s why I always do interviews by the piano—although I’m not doing one now, but there is a piano over there. The sounds are very calming to me. So the moment I played those first couple of notes, my whole body relaxed.
When I looked up at the sky, I wasn’t shocked as to how well everything sounded because we rehearsed it 20 times and we got it right, but I was surprised that the flyover was so musically on rhythm. That’s something that we didn’t plan to happen on that last D major chord. It’s like the airplanes were right in sync with that hit musically. So that was pretty incredible.
I know you’ve said you honored Whitney Houston in a musical sense. Can you describe how you did that?
Well, her rendition of the national anthem, in my opinion and in many people’s opinions, will always be the best one ever done. I wasn’t trying to compete with that, but being that I was the second New Jersey native to sing the national anthem, it would be only right to take bits of her arrangement, the way that she sang certain phrases, and to make it my own and sing actually note for note what she had sung at certain points—how she sang lines like “The rocket’s red glare” or “the land of the free.”
I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you about Taylor Swift’s shout-out on The Tortured Poets Department, which I know led to a shift in creative perspective for you. First off, how did you find out you were on that album?
I was just on the internet and I saw that my name was a searched topic, and I wondered why, because I hadn’t put out any music. Then I heard that great piece of music and I was excited. I mean, who wouldn’t be excited about that? I think I said this before, that maybe that was her way of encouraging me to make a certain type of music. So I’m very grateful for the shout-out.
What about that shout-out changed things for you?
I think it was such a specific lyric, and it inspired me to write specific lyrics.
The album release happens to coincide with the birth of your first child. Where’s your head at these days?
I’m really excited that my life has finally lined up musically to where I want to be. The music is directly parallel with that, which is why Whatever’s Clever! is all Yacht Rock 2026-style. With all respect to the artists that are featured on this album, it’s music I would listen to as a dad, if that makes sense. So I feel very aligned with it. I think it’s very serendipitous and there’s meaning behind everything, and there might be a reason why this album is arriving in a similar timeframe.
Let’s talk about songs that lean into specificity. For example, “I Used to Be Cringe."
That’s actually the song I wrote after I heard The Tortured Poet’s Department.
Do you actually think you used to be cringe? You’ve been a big star for over a decade now. What’s cringe about that?
What I associate with the word cringe, in my case, is just not being honest about who I really was. I don’t blame myself, either; I was just a young man growing up. But I was trying out a lot of different suits, metaphorically. Dyeing my hair blonde, then shaving my hair; adjusting my appearance, adjusting the way that I was talking—just because I wanted to fit in so bad and I wanted people to listen to my music. But what I didn’t realize, and I would ultimately realize when I got a bit older, is that I didn’t need to mold myself into something just so people would like me. I just had to be me the entire time. So I used to do cringey things to maybe get attention when I didn’t need to. I should’ve just let the music speak for itself, and it took me a while to figure it out.
It’s interesting that with lyrics, the more general you are, the less people relate.
I think it speaks to the fact that we all go through unique things. Your situation is unique, but there are then more people who are dying to hear from you. And I felt that it was my duty as an artist to put some chords and some melody to that.
Let’s talk about “Don’t Meet Your Heroes.” First off, when you write a song, do you start with the title or the lyrics?
I think it’s title first. A lot of these songs came about from talking to myself—not out loud, but just thinking. I have a conversation with myself, and in order for me to make a song that could resonate with my fans, I have to tell the truth. And I think about experiences that I went through; times of disappointment, times of joy. One of those times that I wanted to really write about something that I hadn’t written about before was when I was really saddened and disappointed when meeting someone who I’ve looked up to for such a long time. And, sure, everyone can wonder who it’s about specifically, but it’s not really about that.
There was no way to dance around it. I had to write the title “Don’t Meet Your Heroes” because that’s what I was thinking at the time. I remember having that title in my head for a very long time. It was like, what a shame. I should have just kept this person on my inspiration list to meet one day, but not actually meet them. And it’s a bummer, but sometimes you’re disappointed.
Why is now the moment for Yacht Rock 2026, as you dub it? Is it that the country needs a little musical escapism these days?
I don’t know why I make the musical decisions I make. It’s just wherever life leads me, I try and put some chord progressions behind it. Since I’m about to be a father, I’m gonna enter this really exciting stage of life and I feel like this is the perfect soundtrack to that. I feel like it’s a perfect time to get to write really specific songs about subjects that you might not have heard me sing about.
It’s very appropriate that a song called “Changes” opens the record. Did you know you were going to be a dad when you wrote that?
Well, the short answer is no. I didn’t know at the time of the inception of that song. But also, the song is specifically about a growing friendship, a changing friendship, and how life and distance can affect that friendship. That’s something I’ve gone through a couple times over, and I feel like a lot of people have gone through that as well. But it does sound like a Steve Winwood, happy-go-lucky, 1992-era, optimistic-sounding, big snare of a song.
I think I take in the vibes of a song before I actually listen to the lyrics. As a prodigy, how do you listen to music?
I’ll grasp the lyrics if the chords tell me to, but I think I’m like everybody else, in that I don’t hear the lyrics all the way through. First, I’m really just hearing from a producer’s perspective: the drums and how the piano’s placed and where the vocals are sitting in the mix. But if there’s a really compelling lyric—it just happens to be the title of the song, or a very distinct part musically—it’s gonna definitely catch my ear.
We’re now in the midst of a ’90s-style boom, from the Love Story phenomenon to Harry Styles’s recent album rollout, for which he wore a lot of button-down shirts and ties. It should be noted that you flaunted that aesthetic early on for this album. What made you gravitate towards that for this project?
It was really important for me, on this campaign, to wear clothes that I wear, and when I was picturing this album, I was thinking about my favorite teachers I’ve grown up with and how they cared about the subject they were teaching. Even if I wasn’t particularly gonna be an A+ student in chemistry, my chemistry teacher would get dressed up with a tie and show up at seven o’clock in the morning, really ready to teach. I admire teachers. I think they’re some of the most important people. So by putting on my tie, it’s like I’m showing up to work. I care about what my fans are gonna listen to. I care about the music that I wrote.
To help promote the album, you performed an intimate series of residencies at places like the Blue Note jazz club in New York. I saw one of those performances; you were smiling the whole time and said you’ve never been happier. Why did that make you so happy?
I made this album for myself, and it’s full of music from the year I was born. It’s a passion project. In the most humble way, I have nothing to prove anymore. That’s at least how I feel.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.