For a certain kind of pop fan, it has been very difficult to avoid Jack Antonoff in 2021. In March, the songwriter and producer was a wide-eyed player in Taylor Swift’s woodsy Grammys performance and took home an award for his work on the star’s 2020 record folklore. Then came Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over the Country Club and St. Vincent’s Daddy’s Home, both featuring Antonoff’s studio handiwork. He helped Clairo conjure Harry Nilsson vibes on her sophomore album and got beachy with Lorde for her upcoming Solar Power. He’s even there when he’s not: in early July, Antonoff, Swift, and St. Vincent—all “Cruel Summer” co-writers—received retroactive credits on Olivia Rodrigo’s hit “deja vu.” To top it off, Antonoff has been promoting Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night, the new album from his glorified Springsteen tribute project, Bleachers, complete with a skronking Tonight Show set. But the moment that made me hiss “enough!” under my breath came with the announcement that he had worked on Diana Ross’ surprise comeback record, Thank You. The guy who once literally brought his childhood bedroom on tour as a badge of underdog status has now collaborated with the most iconic diva of all time.
In the mid-to-late 2010s, Antonoff’s initial production style—ecstatic ’80s revivalism full of sparkling synths, massive drums, and big ol’ choruses—similarly felt like it was everywhere, though he was technically working less. As a songwriter, he was the guy you called to help capture big feelings, like the electrifying thrill of a budding romance, squiggly dancefloor euphoria haunted by a looming comedown, or a longing so seismic that it gives the San Andreas fault line a run for its money. But lately, many of Antonoff’s regulars have moved away from maximalism in favor of more subdued, insular tunes. Maybe it’s a logical progression or simply a sign of the times: When COVID-19 brought the music industry to a standstill, Swift used the time to craft two intimate, spiritually woodsy records, while Clairo literally retreated to the mountains for her modest-sounding Sling; both approaches led to more organic production styles. Lorde’s recent singles, “Solar Power” and “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” aim for “sexy, playful, feral, and free” (her words) but seem natural to the point of sanded down and lacking some idiosyncratic sparkle; the melodies on “Stoned at the Nail Salon” remind some of recent Lana Del Rey ballads, a woman’s voice against a backdrop of barely-there guitars that eventually bloom into expansive choruses.
Antonoff’s perceived grip over the introspective pop girlies has given birth to many memes at this point—the one that jokingly asks if he produced Joni Mitchell’s opus Blue is evidence enough for how often he is working on a certain type of album. Even Courtney Love got in on the action, reposting a meme that likened Antonoff to a shopper browsing for new ideas on comically empty shelves. The creeping sentiment online about our favorite pop stars’ favorite producer is that he’s annoyingly, inescapably, maddeningly…. Everywhere. And that, as the designated steward of Tasteful Pop, maybe his omnipresence has flattened the sound of that niche between mainstream pop and indie music.
It’s possible that Antonoff’s constant presence feels especially irksome because of our own aspirational wants for the music industry—wouldn’t it be nice if some of the great female songwriters of our time were produced by women as well? Fans are right to wonder why there aren’t more female producers working in the highest echelons of pop and indie music, though it isn’t a particularly new concern. A USC Annenberg study on inclusion in the music industry found that in 2020, out of 198 producers credited on the Hot 100 year-end chart, only 4 were women. Since the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical was established in 1974, less than 10 women have been nominated. No woman has ever won. Clearly, the problem of representation in music is much bigger than Jack Antonoff—but considering him in this context is especially interesting given his tendency to work with critically significant artists who have written deeply personal albums about love and identity alongside him.
Antonoff likes to remind people that he was not always the guy sought out by the stars. After years spent bouncing from punk to indie rock to Grammy-winning pop, his first really big songwriting/production credits arrived on Taylor Swift’s 2014 record 1989; “Out of the Woods,” in particular, established Antonoff’s early stylistic trademarks. Landing a handful of songs with the biggest singer-songwriter on Earth was pivotal for a guy who was best known as a member of the pop-rock band fun. or perhaps, as Lena Dunham’s boyfriend. “Before Taylor, everyone said: ‘You’re not a producer,’” Antonoff later told the New York Times. “It took Taylor Swift to say: ‘I like the way this sounds.’” It turned out that other artists liked it, too. After a handful of one-offs with pop stars like Troye Sivan, Grimes, and Sia, he embarked on his first full-length collaboration, Lorde’s sterling 2017 record Melodrama. If working with Swift helped him gain an identity beyond “guy in an impossible-to-Google band,” Antonoff’s work on Melodrama made him a headline-worthy name.
2017 turned out to be a huge year for him. With the release of Melodrama, St. Vincent’s Masseduction, Swift’s Reputation, and his second Bleachers album, Antonoff’s public profile skyrocketed. His eagerness to be an open book stood in stark contrast to Swift, who was largely radio silent that year, and St. Vincent, who held court in a wooden box with pre-recorded responses to formulaic questions. (Lorde’s interviews that year were charmingly normal.) The myth of the genius is gendered, and even the most well-meaning white man casts a long shadow when placed on a pedestal. So it should come to no surprise that the narrative surrounding Antonoff has sometimes resulted in the erasure or depreciation of his female collaborators, subconsciously or otherwise. “He’s still writing Jack Antonoff songs—they just happen to be sung by people like Lorde now,” touted GQ in 2018, to which Lorde responded (and later deleted), “Knew there was a way to describe the personal and skilful [sic] work that i do turns out it’s ‘singing jack antonoff songs’.
Lately, this mode of thought has done a 180°: When an artist’s fans find a shift in sound underwhelming, they love to blame Antonoff. Every one of Antonoff’s more recent collaborations has come with a fresh wave of tweets that accuse him of imposing “his sound”—essentially, nostalgic guitars and string arrangements, swelling choruses—on his female collaborators. Sure, maybe the songs are not all that exciting—“Solar Power” needs a stronger hook, St. Vincent’s “The Melting of the Sun” is bloodless—but the remarks also tend to feed into the age-old stereotype that women artists have no agency over their work. If we won’t let Antonoff take sole responsibility for their successes, why should he be given ownership of their lukewarm musical departures, too? Let ladies have their flops!
Besides, these interpretations misunderstand Antonoff’s priorities as a producer and songwriter. Since he tends to be an album guy these days, he’s usually involved and invested in the entirety of a project rather than one piece of the puzzle. In interviews over the years, he has reinforced the notion that emotional vulnerability, instead of a signature sound, is the cornerstone of his work. As Antonoff tells it, recording sessions seem to resemble a more symbiotic version of psychotherapy: “When I work with other people, I’m always trying to find out: Where can we go even further?” he once told Pitchfork. “In the second verse, can you fire out a few lines about something that happened to you when you were 9?”
It’s not surprising that this method would build trust and a consistent working relationship. Antonoff’s collaborators have universally positive things to say about him: St. Vincent called him “the best teammate you could want… he’s 100 percent a cheerleader”; the Chicks’ Martie Maguire described him as an easy confidant for the close-knit trio; Lorde said they can communicate “almost telepathically” and that songwriting can feel “like actual alchemy.” In an industry rife with creeps, positive creative relationships like these are indisputably invaluable. If musicians want to work with Antonoff instead of the Dr. Lukes of the world, can you really blame them?
But maybe all the irritation surrounding Antonoff has less to do with underwhelming songs but his public persona. The man has a real Dan Humphrey aura about him, and can’t go a single interview without mentioning how growing up across the river from Manhattan made him insecure, despite the fact that he attended a prestigious performing arts high school next to Central Park. He talks of idolizing the Boss, and then releases an album that’s borderline Springsteen cosplay—cheesy and cliché at best, and musical manspreading at worst. And isn’t it strange that the past two Bleachers albums have arrived roughly two weeks before that of Lorde’s? While I have no reason to doubt the genuine care behind his approach to songcraft, there’s something icky about aggressively presenting yourself as a man empathetic to women’s emotions. Thank you, we get it! Given the headlines about how he does not want to merely take up space, he has traveled through pop with extreme Main Character Energy. It’s not entirely his fault, he just can’t help it.
