Early in his career, the EDM megastar Calvin Harris sang his own vocals, usually doing a detached, semi-ironic hipster thing on tracks like "The Girls." Even after his career exploded, Harris would sing occasionally. Some of the tracks that Harris sang himself, like 2011's "Feel So Close" and 2014's "Summer," became major international hits. But Harris seemed to realize that his shit would sound a whole lot better if he had a pop star like Rihanna or Dua Lipa singing lead. Last year, he had a minor hit with the Ellie Goulding collab "Free." But now, Harris is singing again. He's also doing the stomp-clap folk thing.
Back in the Mumford days, a few of Calvin Harris' superstar-DJ peers had hits by combining their festival EDM with hey-ho banjo music. That turned out to be a successful combination on tracks like Avicii's "Wake Me Up" and the Selena Gomez/Kygo collab "It Ain't Me." I don't remember Harris attempting anything like that back then, not even when he was dating Taylor Swift. But with his new single "Smoke The Pain Away," Harris seems to be attempting a Noah Kahan type of thing, but with big house drums alongside acoustic guitars and harmonica-honks.
It's pretty weird! Calvin Harris is still doing his old crowd-pleasing EDM tricks, but he's also warbling about trying to dull his depression through drugs. Along with the new single, Harris shows off his new look in press photos, and it appears that he's going for a stereotypical-Vietnam-vet thing. It's a bold move. We'll have to see how it turns out. Experience "Smoke The Pain Away" for yourself below.
"Smoke The Pain Away" is out now on Sony.
