“I wanted a project that sounded like the jumble that’s in my brain,” says the Bleachers leader.
Ever wonder what Bleachers’ acclaimed 2014 album Strange Desire would sound like if its 11 tracks had been performed by a colorful array of female vocalists? Wonder no more: on Monday (Sept. 28), Jack Antonoff’s solo project released Terrible Thrills Vol. 2, a free, all-female “re-imagining” of his RCA debut, featuring re-workings of Strange Desire tracks by Sara Bareilles, Charli XCX, Tinashe, Carly Rae Jepsen and others.
Antonoff tells Billboard that the idea behind Terrible Thrills Vol. 2 actually came to him six years ago — his old band Steel Train released the first volume of an all-female covers compilation. “I wanted a project that sounded like the jumble that’s in my brain,” he says. “I hear my songs being sung by females before I change them and make them into my voice. The whole heart of this idea is for people to hear the album the way I hear it in my head, reinterpreted by the artists who sort of inspired it to be written in the first place.”