Music Is Better

Album: Inhale/Exhale (2024)
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Songfacts®:

  • Most experiences are better when you have someone to share them with, and listening to music is one of them, according to Rüfüs Du Sol. "Music Is Better," the carefree lead single of the band's fifth studio album, Inhale/Exhale (2024), is about two people who bond over their love of music. According to the band's drummer, James Hunt, the song "reflects a lighter, more fun approach that emerged during the writing process for this album, where we found ourselves reconnecting and enjoying the studio again."

    He continued in the 2024 interview with Numero Netherlands, "The album spans a spectrum of light and dark, and this track intentionally departs from our recent style by embracing a mantra-based simplicity."
  • Hunt told Numero Netherlands the band drew inspiration from late '90s and early 2000s French house music by incorporating swirly phaser effects and loopy production. "This song became a unique experiment, allowing it to stand out amidst the diverse moods and feelings on the album. Each track serves as its own intentional exploration, making this one a joyful highlight," he explained.
  • The Australian natives chose different locales for each of their albums, which influenced the direction of their music and lyrics (for example, the brutal chill of a Berlin winter crept into the robotic beat and yearning lyrics of their haunting epic "Innerbloom").

    For Inhale/Exhale, they went to Austin, Texas for two weeks and traveled to the Spanish island of Ibiza for another two weeks before completing the rest of the album in Los Angeles. But this time around, it wasn't their environment that influenced the music - it was their creative process. Making their pandemic album, Surrender, taught them how to slow down through shared therapeutic and spiritual activities like ice baths, sauna sessions and group meditation at their desert retreat in Joshua Tree.

    They brought the same energy to Inhale/Exhale which, keyboardist Jon George told Billboard in 2024, started with a guided meditation focused on "how we were going to feel after writing a record, and what my future self looks like during that process."
  • In 2025, the band made history when their global Inhale/Exhale tour became the highest-selling electronic tour of all time, moving 750,000 headline tickets to an audience of 1.5 million fans worldwide.

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