Melissa Kacar

Greetings from The Crux Hotel! 🐭🗝️☆  Back in August 2025 when I visited Los Angeles , one of the biggest highlights of the trip was getting to take a tour of Paramount Studios. Of course tons of iconic movies and TV shows were filmed there, but one of my personal favorite parts of the tour was seeing the building facade used on the cover of one of my favorite albums ever - The Crux by Djo !! I absolutely love Djo 's music and this was so cool to see in person. Not to mention, this is also one of my favorite album covers of all time too! The cover was shot on Paramount's outdoor cityscape backlot. It's a part of a massive set that's been used in countless projects, meant to mimic the look of New York or Chicago. The tour guide drove through this part of the lot really quickly because they were actually filming something there that day, but I'm so glad I got to get a few pictures of it. Hopefully one day I get to go back and take pictures in front of it!  The Cru...

The newly expanded version of Djo 's The Crux is more than just a regular deluxe album. As a whole, these additional twelve songs give so much more insight into the journey he took while writing this album and all of the different directions he could've taken with it narratively. The Crux (Deluxe)  is more so a companion project of songs that were written during the same creative period as the rest of The Crux , but didn't make the initial cut. That said, they don't feel like leftovers. Each track is truly like a natural expansion of the time in his life that inspired this music, and collectively, they feel like a culmination of some of the more unhinged parts of himself that he had to work through to arrive at the final version of The Crux . From working through the early aftermath and heartache of a breakup, to navigating some of the darker parts of fame, virality and newfound pressures of the music industry that he experienced when making this album throughout 2024,...

"Mr. Mountebank" by Djo The Crux (Deluxe) gives so much more insight into the journey Djo took while writing this album and all of the different directions he could've taken with it narratively. It's more than just a regular deluxe album, it's more so a companion project of twelve songs that were written during the same creative period as The Crux , but didn't make the initial cut. That said, they don't feel like leftovers. Each track truly feels like a natural expansion of the time in his life that inspired this music, and collectively, they feel like a culmination of some of the more unhinged parts of himself that he had to work through to arrive at the final version of The Crux . "Mr. Mountebank" is one of my many favorites, he goes fully Djo XCX on it, diving into a wild and abrasive hyperpop sound that's completely different from anything he's made before. It offers a sharp commentary on fame and virality, especially in the wake of ...

"Gap Tooth Smile" is absolutely one of the brightest shining moments of Djo 's entire discography. It is so unapologetically direct and playful as he captures love with such sincerity. There's an earnestness and whimsy to it that just feels so genuine and inherently joyful. That, paired with the humor and confidence woven throughout, fully embodies all the reasons why Joe Keery is such a magnetic performer and songwriter. The way he captures such a specific, unconditional kind of love and admiration is so sweet. "Anything's cool if it's done with heart" feels like the thesis not just of this song, but of everything Joe does with his music.  Those traits shine through in every lyric. "There she is, gap-tooth smile, God, how lucky can a simple man be? One life living and a cat beguiled, I know that's my future looking right back at me," he sings in the opening lines. There are so many other really great lyrics that stand out that embody...