The Weezer classic Steve Lacy called “one of my favourite songs ever”
One of the most exciting current musicians is Steve Lacy. Breaking through as the guitarist of the influential Californian alternative R&B band The Internet, after releasing the 2017 EP Steve Lacy’s Demo, he started to come into his own as a solo artist and found prominence on his terms. Notably, Lacy was featured on Tyler, the Creator’s ‘911 / Mr. Lonely’, and has since co-written for Kendrick Lamar, Solange Knowles, and Chloe x Halle.
Lacy truly cemented himself as a staple of popular culture, however, when he released his sophomore studio album, Gemini Rights, in July 2022. The record spawned the hit single ‘Bad Habit’, which became his first to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
Reflecting on the generation with whom his work resonates, much of its success was attributed to its ubiquity on TikTok, the social media platform on which the song went viral when a snippet of the track was used as a soundtrack for over 400,000 videos. The hit was so impactful that it earned Lacy two nominations at the Grammy Awards for ‘Records of the Year’ and ‘Song of the Year’, with Gemini Rights winning ‘Best Progressive R&B Album’.
Despite being ostensibly a pop and R&B artist due to the immense success he’s experienced in his career and the electronic edge to his music, these tags only account for a narrow scope of the Californian’s artistry. A dextrous musician, Lacy’s work and guitar playing encompasses indie rock, soul, lo-fi, jazz and more experimental pastures. Unsurprisingly, the musician cites many notable figures as influences, with some of the most prominent coming from rock and indie.
When speaking to The Guardian in 2022, Lacy was asked about his primary rock and indie influences. He mentioned Paramore, Mac DeMarco, Vampire Weekend and Dirty Projectors as influences. In the most surprising twist of all, he revealed that Weezer’s classic ‘Undone – The Sweater Song’ from 1994’s The Blue Album is “one of my favourite songs ever”.
“Growing up playing Guitar Hero put me on to a lot of rock and guitar music,” Lacy said. “As I got older, artists such as Paramore raised me. Mac DeMarco, Dirty Projectors, Vampire Weekend. Even [the] Weezer [song] ‘Undone’ is one of my favourite songs ever.”
Regarding his love for Weezer, he continued: “With Weezer, I love the wit and humour. The dissonance of the chord progression of ‘Undone’ is truly just weird. For something like that to exist was super important for me in my musical journey, to be, like: ‘Oh, wow, you can make this sound fun and dope.'”
