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,...

At its core, The Crux by Djo is a heartfelt ode to the people that have shaped him, along with his family and friends that have supported him through every phase of his life. Musically, this album pays homage to many of the influences he grew up with, signaling a nostalgic return to the sounds that inspired his love for music at an early age.  Djo is the musical pseudonym for actor Joe Keery, who is best known for his work in Stranger Things.  He first released music under Djo (pronounced the same as his first name) in 2019 with his debut album, Twenty Twenty . The decision to create under a stage name allowed him to separate his acting career from his music, encouraging listeners to approach his projects without any preconceived notions or expectations. His first two albums, Twenty Twenty and DECIDE , were mostly made at home alongside his close friend and frequent collaborator Adam Thein. Together, they crafted deeply personal records that were bold, experimental and intros...

"End of Beginning" is a powerful reflection on a time - and even more so, a place - that continues to represent a very specific chapter of Djo 's life. At the heart of it, the song tells a coming‑of‑age story and serves as a love letter to the people and the city that shaped so much of who he is today. For Joe Keery , who has been releasing music under the pseudonym Djo since his debut album in 2019, this song marked a major breakthrough moment for him. Released in 2022, it captured the feeling of being on the precipice of a major life change while simultaneously looking back at how formative living in Chicago was for him. After moving there for college, he spent much of his early twenties auditioning for acting jobs, playing in his band Post Animal, waiting tables, and building a life there as a young adult on his own for the first time.  "And when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it, another version of me, I was in it," he sings in the chorus. "I wave go...