On May 3 via Lame-O Records, Portland pop dynamo Mo Troper will return with Svengali, the hotly anticipated follow-up to his 2022 hit record, MTV, and his celebratory 2023 Jon Brion affair, Troper Sings Brion. Last spring, Troper teased the first take from Svengali, “For You to Sing,” which went on to be one of the best pop-rock tracks of the year. Now, lead single “The Billy Joel Fan Club” finds him tinkering with wizardry that would sound perfectly cosmic somewhere in the days between Sgt. Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour. The song, though only a minute-and-a-half, is catchy as all get-out and a mess of dreamy, razor’s edge pop psychedelia. “I thank the stars up above, I knew that it was true love when you asked me to join the Billy Joel Fan Club,” Troper muses in his textbook romantic enthusiasm.
“When I was a kid I was literally forbidden from talking about the Beatles at the dinner table. I could only listen to music in the basement or through headphones. As a result I feel a lot of shame whenever my enthusiasm for anything is apparent. I apologize constantly for being excited about things,” Troper explains about the track. “‘The Billy Joel Fan Club’ is about falling in love with someone who shares your specific interests and nurtures your enthusiasm. It is a true story, about someone who founded and asked me to participate in something called The Billy Joel Fan Club. To bring it full circle, I tried to make it sound exactly like a Paul McCartney song from 1967.”
Watch the music video for “The Billy Joel Fanclub” and check out the Svengali artwork and tracklist below.
Svengali Artwork:
Svengali Tracklist:
Bleach
The Billy Joel Fan Club
Too Far Gone (Chairman’s Theme)
Spark World
You Always Loved Me
The Face of Kindness
You Called Me Your Baby
For You To Sing
A Piece of You Broken Through My Heart
Recipe For Loving
Good Hair
Before I Went Bad
Push Around