Jack Stauber is a singer/songwriter from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who gained popularity through his trippy animated short music videos that he has been posting on youtube since April 2013.  Jack Stauber is not an artist that can be defined by typical music genres. He describes his own music genre as micropop. Micropop is a type of micro genre, meaning its was created through mixing a variety of genres in attempt to create a new genre, his feels as if its a mix of indie, pop, folk, and alternative. Using his unique style and lyrics Jack Stauber created an album unlike any other with his 2017 album Pop Food.

Jack Stauber has been creating music since high school, but he released his first album in March of 2013. Jack Stauber has recently gained a lot more popularity due to the fact some of his songs have either become memes, or became famous on the app Tik Tok. He released a total of four albums including Pop Food. His four albums, from oldest to most recent, are Finite Form, Viator, Pop Food, and HiLo. All of his albums have a similar style and feel to them.

The first time I listened to Pop Food, I immediately liked it because, even though the music style is a little weird, there is something about it that calms you, the vocals, the strange lyrics, the ever present ethereal string instruments in the backgrounds of all the songs, all of it comes together to create something incredibly beautiful and calming.

This album, and Jack Stauber in general, have such a unique sound and style. If you don’t listen to the lyrics and just focus on the instrumental beat, the melodious  tone of all the songs sweeps your mind into an sense of wonder and calm. If you decided to focus more on the lyrics, then you’re in for a ride. When asked about how he creates his strange and almost confusing lyrics in an interview with Retrowave, he stated, “I get playful with the words but they’re always chosen very carefully. They all make perfect sense. I wouldn’t sing something if it didn’t.” On this album Jack Stauber actually released a song that is a ballad of sorts, called “I love you Verne Troyer.” dedicated to the actor who played Mini Me. In the 8th song on the album “My Plea,” Stauber sings the line “You would’ve said the same thing on the phone with your dad, He was eating so he didn’t pick up,You left a voicemail on his answering machine, that says: ‘Hey dad, dad pick up the phone please!’” In the chorus of this song, Stauber says he has gotten mugged and is calling his girlfriend, asking her for money to buy candy bars. Even if he is singing about the strangest topics, Jack Stauber manages to make it sound beautiful and filled with emotion.

His two most popular songs are “Oklahoma” and “Buttercup” on the Pop Food album. I really enjoy “Oh Klahoma” because even though the meaning behind the lyrics is a bit sad, the tune and the beat of this songs brings back a happy tone for it. In this song Jack Stauber sings about someone who has being dealing with “negative attention” and is very sad and distraught about it. In the chorus, he says, “Tears falling down at the party, saddest little baby in the room, fears, tell me fears, don’t get me started, I get a little grey hair for every scare you share.” Jack is singing about someone breaking down and crying in the middle of the party, and every time they tell Jack what they are afraid of Jack gets more and more worried. I enjoy “Buttercup” for very similar reasons. I originally liked this song because it seems very happy and sweet. Again the melody and rhythm of the song make it seem very happy, and the chorus of the song is him signing “electrify my heart” multiple times so assumed this was a cute love song, but you know what they say about assuming. When I looked up the lyrics I realized this song is actually about an abusive relationship. In first verse he talks about how he is having a hard time going through with breaking up with this person saying, “Forget it, I’ll do it sometime, ooh, I’m locked up on the button.” In the second verse he talks about how the person he is in a relationship with is mean to him and makes him feel inferior with the line “Oh man, you cut me to size (Ow!) My little buttercup (That hurt!)” He calls his significant other “my little buttercup,” calling them a beautiful but poisonous flower. Jack Stauber has an incredible talent for making any topic sound whimsical and happy with the way he sings.

I would highly recommend listening to Jack Stauber’s music, especially Pop Food, because no matter much I try to describe what his music sounds like, it will never come close to how interesting it sounds, so you might as well listen to it yourself.