Watch the Sun
PJ Morton
The title track of his Grammy-winning 2022 album opens with cinematic ambition — horn arrangements that suggest both New Orleans second-line and something more expansive, a sound that wants to hold the full human situation. Features JoJo, whose voice introduces a different emotional temperature against Morton's warmth. The lyrical project is explicit: watching the sun, which is to say orienting toward light as a practice, a discipline, a choice made repeatedly and not just once. The production swells at key moments into something almost orchestral, then contracts back to intimacy. Cultural context: the album was made through and about the pandemic period, the particular exhaustion and reaching-for-hope of that specific historical moment. Best encountered on a morning after a difficult stretch, something on the verge of turning.
medium
2020s
expansive, warm, oscillating
American (New Orleans)
Soul, Gospel. New Orleans soul. hopeful, cinematic. Opens with orchestral ambition and expands, then contracts back to intimacy, ultimately orienting toward light as deliberate practice. energy 7. medium. danceability 5. valence 7. vocals: warm, cinematic, multi-voice, expressive, reaching. production: New Orleans horns, second-line rhythms, orchestral swells, intimate passages. texture: expansive, warm, oscillating. acousticness 5. era: 2020s. American (New Orleans). A morning after a difficult stretch when something is on the verge of turning.