YUNGBLUD : Idols Review

By Steven Miller

YUNGBLUD is the kind of artist who lives like a flame, too unruly to cage, too luminous to ignore. On Idols, YUNGBLUD lights the match and dares us to watch him burn. Part rock opera, part Britpop homage, and part raw nerve confession, this album flirts with chaos and invites listeners to scrawl its lyrics across the walls of their minds and scream into the night until the neighbors feel seen.

From its grandiose opener to its quieter farewells, Idols is a rallying cry for the misfits, a record drenched in yearning and reclamation. It’s loud, it’s theatrical, it’s flawed, and in a few moments, it’s electrifying.

At over nine minutes, “Hello Heaven, Hello” sets the tone not just for the album, but for the transformation of the artist himself. It begins as a building, the apex is a choir of “hello” refrains that function as existential echoes. The lyrics are a swirl of identity crisis and rebellion, a dialogue with an invisible audience (“Are you in there? Do you still remember?”) that quickly collapses inward.

YUNGBLUD’s vocal performance here is the heart of the album: strained, messy, and full of desperate conviction. When he shouts, “I wanna feel alive,” you believe him—because he’s not just singing it; he’s trying to prove it. The tempo shifts, instrumental breaks, and layered vocal textures give this track its rock-opera credibility. Yes, it’s indulgent, but that’s the point.

Across the record, YUNGBLUD leans into his influences with such sincerity that the line between homage and pastiche becomes immaterial. “Lovesick Lullaby” is a sugary uppercut of Britpop nostalgia, dressed in jangling guitars and bittersweet swagger. It’s less about innovation and more about owning the reference, which he does with charm.

“Zombie,” arguably the album’s most radio-ready track, with its hooky chorus (“Would you even want me, looking like a zombie?”) and the aching, wear-me-down cadence of early 2000s emo, the song explores emotional numbness with melodic clarity. It’s a standout with its theme and arrangement, not because it reinvents the wheel, but because it makes the listener feel like it was carved from their own teenage heartbreak.

“Monday Murder” is where things take a political and poetic turn. A slow-building dirge wrapped in glam-punk sheen, its chorus, “Just another day to die / Lay down English roses,” is apocalyptic and resigned. It’s the kind of track that seduces with its simplicity, only to leave a lingering aftertaste of disillusionment.

What saves Idols from the pitfalls of its derivative influences and occasional lyrical cliché is YUNGBLUD himself. This is an album less interested in perfection than it is in presence. He throws himself into every song like a man possessed, and his voice smoothes the edges, his emotions bare to the bone.

While some detractors may point to repetitive lyrics or “borrowed” sounds, there’s an undeniable alchemy at play. The production by Mati Schwartz doesn’t reinvent classic rock production, but it doesn’t need to; it’s cinematic where it counts, gritty where it should be, and surprisingly nuanced in its layering of guitar textures, synth swells, and percussion choices.

There are cracks, of course. “Idols Pt. II” and “Supermoon” close the album on a somber, stripped-down note that some will call meditative, others monotonous. After so much color and fervor, these final piano ballads feel washed out, more like post-show comedowns than encores. They might have landed stronger earlier in the record, or with more sonic risk.

Idols is not a perfect record. It is, however, an honest one. It’s an album made not for critics or cool points, but for those who scribble song lyrics on bathroom mirrors, who scream into pillows, who ache to feel something real. It wears its influences like patches on a denim jacket, Oasis, The Verve, Bowie, Queen, MCR, and never claims to invent, only to feel. And in 2025, that might be the most radical thing an artist can do. Anthemic, imperfect, and gloriously over-the-top. Idols is YUNGBLUD’s most audacious and emotionally resonant work yet.