2020 was a lot of things, as we all know. Plenty of twists and turns to last us all many years. But perhaps one of the more surprising things to come from the year was the return of the pop/electronic duo, 3OH!3 — when they dropped “LONELY MACHINES,” a collaboration with 100 gecs.
3OH!3 promised more music, and now they’re following through. Their new album, NEED, is expected to be dropped later this year via their original record label, Photo Finish Records. NEED — with the name being a play on the title of their 2008 hit album, WANT — serves as a reminder that the duo can still write fun pop songs, while also showcasing their growth as artists over the years, and marks their first new album in five years.
Today, 3OH!3 has dropped another single “I’M SO SAD,’ which serves as the lead single off of NEED. Co-written by the duo’s longtime friend Benny Blanco alongside members Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte, “I’M SO SAD” officially premiered yesterday on KTCL-FM in Denver, a hometown station for the Colorado natives.
The accompanying music video for “I’M SO SAD” can be found below, as it teleports viewers back to the signature creative style of the early aughts with electric colors, excellent use of clip art, and a surprising range of emotional depth. It’s a cheeky reminder of 3OH!3’s prescient awareness of the current meme culture on the internet, as well as being a clever play against the song’s lyrics and meaning.
Of the track, Foreman elaborates:
“I think life is about finding balance and having a sense of humor. ‘I’M SO SAD’ checks both of those boxes for me. Growing up, I was taught to fight back or push away parts of myself that were negative-thinking, anxious, and sad. The notion of ‘fighting demons’ or telling feelings ‘no’ has always felt like the way one is told to cope. What I’ve learned in my own journey of mental health is that whatever I feel, when I feel it is welcome. This song is like a ‘welcome home’ party for my sad parts. It seems therapeutic to sing it loud over a big chorus. We all know there are more than enough party songs in the world about ‘feeling good’. Sometimes I just want to party sad.”
Motte adds:
“We’ve all been sad, and we all know what it feels like to be down. With ‘I’M SO SAD,’ I wanted to honor those feelings of sadness and empathize with people who feel sad more often than others in a way that we’ve always tried to at 3OH!3. A way that’s collective, a way that puts a happy face on something sad, and a way that (maybe incongruously) is fun. We wrote the song with Benny Blanco, whom we’ve worked with since 2008, and every time we get back in and write with Benny since then, we never skip a beat. We all share the same mantra of working hard at creative expression, laughing, enjoying our work, and mixing playfulness with heavy things, both sonically and thematically. He’s been through experiences akin to ours, so when I left the studio and went back to Colorado to produce the song I wanted to make sure it did justice to feeling sad, but also use collective fun as a therapy for that individual sadness.”
