Dayglow’s People in Motion Will Make You Dance Your Socks Off

Dayglow’s “People in Motion” Will Make You Dance Your Socks Off

Dayglow released their third studio album People in Motion on Oct. 7. The album follows in the footsteps of the 2019 debut Fuzzybrain and 2021’s Harmony House. Dayglow gained a strong following with its upbeat and joyful indie pop songs that bring together elements of indie, electronic and alternative music together. People In Motion sees this sound presented in even brighter and bolder tones.

Dayglow is the brainchild of Texan musician Sloan Struble who writes, records and produces all of the material. Despite this, Struble considers Dayglow to be more of a band akin to Tame Impala rather than a complete solo act. Dayglow’s inspirations include musicians such as Clairo, Boy Pablo, Paul Simon, James Taylor and Whitney Houston.

Dayglow’s debut Fuzzybrain was recorded and produced entirely by Struble in his bedroom and uploaded onto Spotify. Fuzzybrain would contain three singles- “Can I Call You Tonight?“, “Run the World!!!”, and “False Direction“. “Can I Call You Tonight?” would blow up online and achieve TikTok virality. This helped Dayglow achieve indie success and slowly amass millions of streams in the process.

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Last year would see the release of Harmony House, which had a profound ’80s influence attached to it. This October, Dayglow put out their third album People in Motion. People in Motion is a charming and upbeat album, which retains the 80s influences present in Harmony House. Instrumentally, the album plays around with indie, synth pop, dance and electronic music. The album will definitely make you want to get up and put your dancing shoes on. The project works remarkably well as a mood uplifter and can’t fail to bring a smile onto your face.

“I think most art that’s celebrated for being honest or artsy is almost always pretty dark, or deep and emotional,” Struble said. “But joy is just as much of an emotion as depression is. There’s a time and place for everything, and I think my calling as an artist is to encourage people to look at their life with hope.”

-Sloan Struble reflecting on his music

Struble had married his childhood girlfriend, Regan, in the gap between his second and third album. The happiness of a newly cemented marriage can be heard on a lot of tracks, including the album opener “Second Nature” and the song “Like She Does.” “Second Nature” features a funky bassline and captivating drums. Struble sings about how loving his partner has become so instinctual to him, that the process isn’t even second nature anymore but first nature. On “Like She Does”, Struble talks about how no one understands him better than his now wife. He mentions how he never wrote songs about specific people in the past, but now suspects that subconsciously he had been writing about his wife all along.

“Radio” details Struble’s love for music and more specifically, music on the radio. Struble narrates how music has always helped him get through the hard times, and that though people may come and go, the music will always stay. We see shades of the views present in the iconic songs “Radio Ga Ga” by Queen and “Video Killed The Radio Star” by The Buggles. Struble talks about how radio gives people music, without any of the glamour and stardom of video. This simplicity seems to be at times rare to find in today’s world, especially with the massive growth of platforms such as TikTok.

While most of Dayglow’s catalogue consists of fun positive music, there’s also songs that detail the chaos, anxieties and hardships of modern life. On Fuzzybrain we saw this with “Dear Friend “, while Harmony Tour gave us “Into Blue.” This album continues the theme with the songs “Someone Else” and “Stops Making Sense”. “Someone Else” details the feelings of struggling with identity, with our narrating saying that he feels like a completely different person now compared to what he once was. “Stops Making Sense” is a journey into the worries and struggles of connecting with other people. Even the upbeat “Radio”, has moments of somber introspection as Struble ponders over the extreme fast paced nature of the world and about how people are always drifting in and out of our lives.

“For instance, it’s like there’s so many restaurants around us, but there’s so many scenarios where me and my band are sitting for an hour, saying, ‘Which one do we go to?’ Or it’s like there’s 20 options on Netflix, but you can only pick one. That’s just kind of how life feels. It’s kind of a little album about the chaos of the world and trying to find a way to navigate it”

Sloan Struble reflecting on writing “Radio”

Dayglow’s third album sees another joyous and upbeat album filled with indie pop bops. In a world with so much doom and gloom, it is good to have albums that make you dance as joyfully as this one does.

Dayglow is currently on tour, and you can get their tickets at their website. You can follow them on Instagram and Facebook. You can listen to their music on Spotify and YouTube.