Charlie Puth's New Album Is Inspired By Taylor Swift, Dr. Dre, & Mozart
He thought Swift’s declaration was a joke at first, but now he’s taking it seriously.
In Elite Daily’s series Early Influences, musicians reflect on the songs and albums that left a lasting impression on them in their formative years. Here, Charlie Puth shares how Taylor Swift’s lyric about him inspired his new music, when the album’s coming, and why Mozart was the original pop star.
Charlie Puth is ready to be a bigger artist. After a surprise shoutout from Taylor Swift, the singer has been inspired to go a different direction with his new music, taking a page from Swift’s tortured poems. “I’ve always loved how Taylor’s songs are kind of like diary entries, and that’s how I’m approaching this new project,” Puth tells Elite Daily about his upcoming album. “Just more detail-oriented lyricism.”
His latest single, “Hero,” is the first taste of this Swift-inspired era, telling a personal story about a friend who kept pushing Puth away when he was trying to help. In the past, Puth would typically create a song’s production first, and then the lyrics. But he’s flipping the script now. “Taylor so graciously writing me into one of her songs kind of inspired this out of me: to start with the lyrics first,” Puth says, adding that this more diaristic album will likely be released in 2025.
It’s really cool when fellow musicians give you that kind of inspiration.
When Swift dropped her album The Tortured Poets Department on April 19, the 32-year-old was just as shocked as everyone else to hear his name in the title track. Well, he had a bit of a warning ahead of time, but he didn’t believe it could be true. “Someone had given me a heads-up, but with AI and everything, I was pretty certain that it was just someone playing a joke,” Puth says. “But then, of course, when we heard it, it wasn’t a joke.”
And Puth certainly isn’t taking Swift’s vote of confidence as a joke. He credited her declaration that he should be a bigger artist as the push he needed to release the song “Hero,” and it’s the motivating force behind his new album as well.
“It kind of assured me to take my time, because the next thing that I want people to hear from me is an entire body of work that’s not just based on sound but based on the story around it,” Puth says. “It’s really cool when fellow musicians give you that kind of inspiration to let you know that you are heading in the right direction.”
Who does he declare should be a bigger artist? “Chappell Roan,” Puth says. “She was uploading YouTube covers the same time I was. I remember watching them back in the Tumblr days of 2014 and 2015, and now she is a massive cultural icon. I’m super happy for her success because she’s very talented.”
As Puth works on his new music and partners with Bic to host a Creativity Camp on Aug. 7 to highlight the importance of arts education in schools (something he says is his “life’s mission”), Elite Daily caught up with the singer to discuss the three most foundational musicians that formed him.
Dr. Dre
Puth’s love for production all goes back to Dr. Dre... even if he didn’t know the hip-hop legend’s name when he first heard his work. “At 11 years old, I would hear songs like that with big snare drums, like Mary J. Blige, ‘California Love,’ and ‘No Diggity,’” he says. “I was like, ‘There are so many sonic similarities here. Who’s making all this stuff?’”
The track that piqued his interest the most was “B*tch Please II” from Eminem’s 2000 release The Marshall Mathers LP. “When I figured out that was Dr. Dre, it led me to The Chronic,” Puth says, crediting the 1992 album as significantly influential to his artistry. “I love the smoothness of the G-funk samples, the P-funk samples on top of the rough drums, and that’s kind of how I approach my music productionwise now.”
His all-time favorite Dr. Dre song is a deep cut. “Maybe I’m the odd man out on this, but it’s ‘The Chronic (Intro),’” Puth says. “I love how out of tune the upper register of the Moog synthesizer is with the bass. It’s so funky.”
While Puth has yet to meet his music production idol, he still hopes to one day sit in the studio with Dre. “I just want to watch him,” Puth says. “I want to see how his mind works, because I think he’s truly the best mixing engineer.”
James Taylor
While Dr. Dre inspired Puth’s passion for production, it was James Taylor who brought out his instrumental side. “I always loved how he played the guitar how a piano player would play the piano, if that makes any sense. It’s less strumming and more finger-picking,” Puth says. “I learned to play piano by listening to James Taylor play guitar.”
Puth grew up on Taylor’s music (“He was the only artist my parents mutually agreed on,” Puth says), and the folk-rock icon’s vocal delivery became the blueprint for how he sings. “I kind of modeled my voice after him, how he has such a high register and a powerful low register,” Puth says. “I would listen to that and want that for myself, and I think I’ve accomplished it. I’ll never think I’m as good of a singer as James Taylor, but I also think music in general should be a melting pot of things.”
A few years back, Puth got to work with Taylor on his 2018 song “Change,” and he saw how much his hero pours into his work. “I admired how much of a perfectionist James was in the studio. I really thought that he was just going to sing it and leave, but he spent hours on it with me,” Puth says. “He really cared about it.”
Mozart
Classical music has been a part of Puth’s life since childhood, and the composer who’s inspired him most is probably the biggest name of them all: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. “The thing that always stuck out to me about Mozart's music was that it was so simple, but it was so obvious if you messed up playing it,” Puth says. “It was somehow the hardest sheet music to play, but with the least amount of notes.”
In Puth’s eyes, Mozart exemplifies a shift in classical music away from overly complex melodies. “It’s so much different from Bach and the 16th century composers,” he muses. “It’s so simple, and it just cut through.”
Although some may not associate classical and pop music, Puth sees Mozart as a pop star in his own right. “I really do think he was the first instance of popular music in the 17th century.”
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
