J-Boy

Album: Ti Amo (2017)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the first single from Ti Amo. The song was released on April 27, 2017.
  • The song title stands for "Just Because Of You," which is the first line of the chorus.
  • The song took a long time to complete. Phoenix explained to NPR: "It came almost as a whole piece. The first take is very close to the final thing. But it took two years [to finish it]. It's like, we were missing two percent, and it took us a very long time to get there. We kept the natural [sound of an] exhale - that's the sound of relief - we kept it because we were all happy that we saw the end of this song."
  • Phoenix are keen recontextualisers. Guitarist Laurent Brancowitz explained to Q magazine: "It is just knowing that you can take two things that are very obvious, clichés in popular culture, and when you put them together, they create something totally new. We know the power of combination, and the power of this strategy. It's very efficient."

    Brancowitz thought that's what they were doing with J Boy. "For us it's white people rapping about when they are really bad at it," he said of Thomas Mars' staccato vocals. "So we thought that was really fun and cool, but I really thought people would hate us for it comma but actually they didn't really care! Which is so sad, you know. I was expecting a wave of pure hate."

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