Charlie Puth's New Music Inspired by Taylor Swift's 'Detail-Oriented' Lyricism After 'TTPD' Shout-Out
Charlie Puth is giving major props to Taylor Swift for inspiring his music.
After the "Karma" singer, 34, gave the "Attention" artist, 32, a very special shout-out in her song, "The Tortured Poets Department," Puth admitted he channeled Swift during the creation process of his latest song "Hero" and his upcoming album.
"I’ve always loved how Taylor’s songs are kind of like diary entries, and that’s how I’m approaching this new project," he explained in a recent interview. "Just more detail-oriented lyricism. Taylor so graciously writing me into one of her songs kind of inspired this out of me: to start with the lyrics first."
The "One Call Away" singer was shocked when the pop icon dropped his name in one of the tracks off her latest hit album where she sings, "You smokеd, then ate seven bars of chocolate / We declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist."
"Someone had given me a heads-up, but with AI and everything, I was pretty certain that it was just someone playing a joke,” Puth recalled of finding out about Swift's compliment. "But then, of course, when we heard it, it wasn’t a joke."
"It kind of assured me to take my time, because the next thing that I want people to hear from me is an entire body of work that’s not just based on sound but based on the story around it," he explained. "It’s really cool when fellow musicians give you that kind of inspiration to let you know that you are heading in the right direction."
Puth also cited Dr. Dre as a major influence on the highly anticipated release. "At 11 years old, I would hear songs like that with big snare drums, like Mary J. Blige, ‘California Love,’ and ‘No Diggity,’” he added. "I was like, ‘There are so many sonic similarities here. Who’s making all this stuff?’”
"I just want to watch him,” the chart-topper said about the rap legend, 59. "I want to see how his mind works, because I think he’s truly the best mixing engineer."
Surprisingly, Puth also named Mozart as an artist he was listening to when creating the body of work. "The thing that always stuck out to me about Mozart's music was that it was so simple, but it was so obvious if you messed up playing it,” Puth explained of the classical musician. "It was somehow the hardest sheet music to play, but with the least amount of notes. It’s so much different from Bach and the 16th century composers. It’s so simple, and it just cut through."
Elite Daily conducted the interview with Puth.