With his new album, Charlie, set to drop later this fall (Oct. 7), Charlie Puth, American Songwriter’s current cover artist, has released a new single, “Smells Like Me,” from the upcoming project.
The multi-platinum songwriter’s new track is a reinvention of the breakup song. Flipping the tradition, Puth offers biting lyrics with a bright melody, subtle guitars, and twinkling keys as he sings, I hope the memory’s killin’ you over there / Don’t even front, you know that you just can’t compare / What it used to be / I hopе your jacket smells like mе / My baby, yeah / And when you touch him, does it really feel the same? / Or are you lyin’ there, thinkin’ about the way / That it used to be? / I hope your jacket smells like me / My baby, in the chorus.
The new track is the fourth release by Puth from his upcoming LP, following “Light Switch,” “that’s Hilarious” and “Left and Right” [feat. Jung Kook of BTS].
It’s an album that’s about stuff I went through from 2019 through 2022,” shares Puth, “but it’s just as much about the listener as well, and me wanting to guide them to inspiration.”
On Charlie, Puth also put his usual template, from his 2016 debut, Nine Track Mind, and the follow-up Voicenotes, in reverse. This time, the lyrics came before the music. “I wanted to approach this album a little differently, where on Voicenotes it was all music first, lyrics after, and that’s usually how I write a lot of music for myself and for other artists,” says Puth, adding that when he wrote “Stay” for Justin Bieber and The Kid LAROI in 2021, he used the same format. “For this album, I had so much to say and throughout all the conversations that I had with myself, I was able to start with the lyrics first and then put the music on afterward.”
