No matter’s Intelligent! dropped on March 27, 2026 through Atlantic Information, co-produced with BloodPop (Justin Bieber, Girl Gaga) and blended by Grammy-winning engineer Manny Marroquin. Twelve tracks. Six options. A visitor listing that reads like a Corridor of Fame roll name. And beneath all of it, probably the most cohesive report Puth has put his identify to.
This isn’t the Charlie Puth who wrote “Consideration” and moved on. The 34-year-old who made No matter’s Intelligent! turned a father the week it got here out, carried out the nationwide anthem with Kenny G at Tremendous Bowl LX in February, was honoured as MusiCares Individual of the 12 months in January, and had his identify dropped by Taylor Swift within the title monitor of The Tortured Poets Division. Swift’s line, “we declared Charlie Puth must be an even bigger artist,” landed as a really public sign to concentrate.
The album has a selected place to begin. Max Martin known as Puth earlier than a observe was written and informed him he missed the emotion in his data, that there was a time he might really feel what Puth was singing about with out even making out the lyrics. Puth began the album based mostly on that dialog.
The sound pulls from late-80s/early-90s pop, yacht rock, and blue-eyed soul, however the references are too particular and too well-executed to name it nostalgia tourism.
Puth began the album from a clean slate with BloodPop, which is how “Modifications” was born from an uncommon session the place BloodPop was coding a online game and feeding Puth ambient sounds from a gaming PC.
The monitor that turned the album opener arrived by means of a sound Puth couldn’t identify. He informed Rick Beato that the hook got here from the chord itself, particularly an F over B flat within the refrain that carries simply sufficient dissonance to drag you again each time.
He even reached out to Bruce Hornsby to play the piano break. Hornsby turned it down, saying the part sounded completed. He was proper. Puth performed it himself.
“Modifications” is a track concerning the distance that grows between folks as life shifts. That explosive refrain, constructed on programmed drums and what feels like a faked guitar loop put by means of Melodyne, hits with the power of one thing that price greater than it seems to be prefer it did. A gospel choir arrives late and makes the entire thing really feel like one thing you might need heard by means of an open automotive window in 1989.
“Beat Your self Up” is the perfect 80s monitor that by no means got here out within the 80s. Written as an oblique heart-to-heart for a buddy who is simply too exhausting on himself, it advanced into one thing Puth realised he wanted to listen to. The bass line is heat, the groove is free, and the chord development carries the identical acquainted pull as Rick Astley’s “By no means Gonna Give You Up.” Max Martin pushed Puth to make the snare louder on this one. He must be thanked for that.
“Cry (feat. Kenny G)” is a track Puth wrote for his grieving father, telling him it’s okay to disintegrate. The monitor breathes late-80s simple listening, heat and uplifting the place it might have been heavy, a sensible tonal determination on a track about watching a dad or mum break down. The lead vocal was stored from the primary take. Puth added layers round it however didn’t re-sing it, as a result of the emotion was already there and he knew it. The Kenny G collaboration took place by means of the Moises app: Puth remoted a saxophone solo from a Kenny G YouTube video, transposed it, and despatched it as a map of what he wished the solo to sound like. Kenny G known as again and mentioned it was achieved. Puth was at In-N-Out along with his spouse on the time. The completed solo ended up roughly 75% what Puth had sketched, which is the best consequence. It arrives within the last part and offers the track room to exhale.
“Washed Up” is constructed round comfortable trumpets within the type of Jimmy Buffett-era pop, and the brightness is deliberate. The track is about organising an intervention for an in depth buddy scuffling with dependancy. Puth informed the LA Occasions it shares a key with the Spice Women’ “Cease,” C main, which he known as “a really comfortable key.” Most artists would write a darkish track a few darkish topic. Puth writes a contented one.
“New Jersey (feat. Ravyn Lenae)” is a grudge track dressed as a diss monitor. Puth sings about avoiding his dwelling state fully after a heartbreak there, mendacity to himself that there’s nothing worthwhile in New Jersey quite than admitting what really occurred. Ravyn Lenae’s counter-verse reframes the entire story: she noticed the connection as an informal fling, not the intense dedication Puth believed it to be. Two folks, one story, utterly completely different variations. The monitor is petty in one of the simplest ways.
“Don’t Meet Your Heroes” is a soulful mid-album lower about assembly somebody you admired and strolling away wishing you hadn’t. Puth won’t say who. It additionally carries the jazziest instrumental second on the album, a piano solo that sits in a unique register to every part round it and makes the monitor really feel heavier.
“Dwelling (feat. Hikaru Utada)” is a track Puth wrote for his spouse Brooke, now the mom of their son Jude. Constructed round the concept a home means nothing with out the precise one that makes it one, Puth mentioned of the monitor: “Dwelling was written for my finest buddy, spouse and soon-to-be mom of our first little one. The whole lot is smart together with her.”
The choice to herald Hikaru Utada, one in all Japan’s most influential pop artists was purely on aesthetics. Utada sings her verse in Japanese and pulls the track towards her Coronary heart Station-era sound, which Puth had the boldness to go away intact.
“Hey Brother” is a midtempo R&B letter to Puth’s youthful sibling, stacked with the type of vocal layering and harmonic precision that comes from somebody who studied at each the Manhattan College of Music and Berklee. It’s simple to overlook the depth of the association, which you uncover on the second pay attention.
“Sideways (feat. Coco Jones)” is the silkiest factor Puth has achieved. The piano preset is the Dig EP from the Roland JV-1080, the identical one Babyface used on the Ready to Exhale soundtrack. Puth knew precisely what he was referencing. Jones got here in with two hours earlier than a red-eye to New York and knew each observe of the track earlier than she walked in. She doesn’t attempt to compete with Puth. She simply pushes him.
“Love in Exile (feat. Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins)” is the yacht rock payoff. The title got here from Loggins himself. The monitor has a buoyancy that remembers the Doobie Brothers’ “What a Idiot Believes,” which McDonald and Loggins co-wrote practically fifty years in the past. You can not make this report and never put these two on it. Michael McDonald informed the LA Occasions he had been desperate to work with Puth and jumped on the probability when Loggins made the decision.
“Till It Occurs To You (feat. Jeff Goldblum)” works Goldblum’s spoken phrase right into a hand-clapping groove. It’s the one second on the album the place the idea is doing extra lifting than the track. As a breather earlier than the closing monitor it’s practical. As a standalone entry on a report this musically deliberate, it’s the least important factor right here.
“I Used to Be Cringe” closes the album as a direct reckoning with who Puth used to current himself as. He’s not making an attempt to disown his catalogue. He’s acknowledging that the model of himself who made “Marvin Gaye” with Meghan Trainor was performing one thing, and that he’s achieved performing it.
The manufacturing all through displays somebody working on the limits of their style quite than the boundaries of their ambition. Manny Marroquin’s mixes are dynamic however punchy, giving the report the type of heat and ahead strain that remembers late-80s pop manufacturing at its finest. Puth makes use of 19 orchestral musicians on one passage of “Modifications,” intentionally avoiding a spherical quantity as a result of it felt tighter.
No matter’s Intelligent! compares favourably to Voicenotes (2018), which stays Puth’s most replayed album and the one his fanbase returns to most. On Voicenotes the music did the work. Right here the preparations do the speaking and the lyrics get out of the way in which. His 2022 self-titled Charlie by no means had the replay worth that Voicenotes nonetheless does. It will.
For years the knock on Charlie Puth was that he had the musicianship however stored pointing at it. On No matter’s Intelligent! he stops pointing and simply performs. The album doesn’t want Taylor Swift’s endorsement, although it arrived on the proper second. It simply wanted him to cease separating who he’s from what he makes. He figured that out. Higher late than by no means, but additionally: not that late.
Ranking: 9/10
Label: Atlantic Information Launched: 27 March 2026 Tracklist: Modifications / Beat Your self Up / Cry feat. Kenny G / Washed Up / New Jersey feat. Ravyn Lenae / Don’t Meet Your Heroes / Dwelling feat. Hikaru Utada / Hey Brother / Sideways feat. Coco Jones / Love in Exile feat. Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins / Till It Occurs To You feat. Jeff Goldblum / I Used to Be Cringe
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