Tobias Jesso Jr. emerged a decade ago with Goon, a collection that Mark Richardson said showcased the Canadian-born singer-songwriter’s “knack for writing songs that you feel like you’ve heard before, even if you can’t quite pin down a precise antecedent.” Jesso, who was 29 years old at the time of his debut, then stopped releasing music of his own and began to work with some of the biggest names in music. He co-wrote Sia’s “Alive” and multiple songs on Adele’s 25, including the standout “When We Were Young.” And those were just his 2015 contributions.
Jesso continued his work as a writer and producer, collaborating with Adele (on 30), Florence and the Machine, Haim, FKA twigs, Orville Peck, Harry Styles, Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa, Bon Iver, Justin Bieber, Dijon, Rosalía, and many others. He also won the Grammy Award for Songwriter of the Year, Non-Classical, in its first year of existence, and he’ll look to win it again in 2026.
Now, just as unassumingly as he arrived, Jesso has announced his second studio album. The new album is called Shine (stylized as: s h i n e), and it is out on November 21 via R&R. Jesso, who is now 40 years old, produced Shine, and the album was mixed by Shawn Everett. Leading the eight-track effort is “I Love You,” which comes with a music video directed by Christopher Ripley and starring Dakota Johnson and Riley Keough. Watch it below.
According to a press release, Shine is about Jesso, as well as “his mom, his son, a breakup, and his life at this moment in time, with some help from Danielle Haim, Eli Teplin, Julian Bunetta, Justin Vernon, Rosie Hamilton, Tommy King, and a psychic.” He wrote the album during a six-week sabbatical and recorded it live on the piano, alone at his house.
Revisit the review of the 2014 song that put Tobias Jesso Jr. on the map, “True Love.”
