Johnny Blue Skies (né Sturgill Simpson) sowed chaos a couple of weeks ago when he announced that his latest album, Mutiny After Midnight, would be a physical-only release. Fans all over the planet joined together to ask, “How the hell can I listen to it in my car?” Well, Johnny Blue Skies (aka Dick Daddy) did it again – more chaos when he unceremoniously dropped the entire fucking album on YouTube Sunday night.
And I’m not using “fucking” for emphasis. This album is about fucking, it’s meant for fucking, and it fucks. Mutiny After Midnight is the horny, get-you-pregnant protest album you didn’t know you wanted, waiting for you to understand that you really needed it. The album opens with the track “Make America Fuk Again,” where JBS makes a few things clear: 1) He’s ready to shake off the last few conservative fans hanging on, asking him to sing “You Can Have The Crown,” while ignoring his forays into genre bending, horn sections, and being a blatant “hick-lib;” 2) He’s weaponizing his neurodivergence; and 3) It’s time for America to fuck each other (for fun) and the government (for revolution).
If listeners hadn’t caught Sturgill’s 2025 tour, they may not fully understand the point of track one. That’s okay, he’s leaving nothing up for debate in track two, which opens with:
Boy, I’m trying to talk to you
I can’t breathe and I’m turning blue
What’s the problem, what did I do?
I can not cooperate if you don’t want me to
I hear you screaming telling me to get down
I hear you telling me not to resist
Hard to move with your knee on my neck
Hard to have a conversation with fourteen fists
This album is dripping in influences from Marvin Gaye, Stuff, and stanky bass. If Sturgill Simpson was a genre-breaking country artist, Johnny Blue Skies is ready to bring funk and danceable disco in the horniest, stankiest way possible. Between songs that invite you to “Stay on that D, until you hit that G” and ask you to let him be your lollipop, Simpson is letting some of his best love songs loose, and never taking his foot off the gas when it comes to how he feels about the state of the union.
If you’re listening to this album while making dinner with your partner, don’t be surprised if you end up as dessert. Songs like “Don’t Let Go” and “Viridescent” will convince you that you’re making love, while “Situation” and “Everyone Is Welcome” will remind you that there’s more than one way to get down (and maybe a few you haven’t tried). This album never forgets that it’s about mutiny, though. The album sends us out on “Ain’t That A Bitch,” just in case a MAGAt or billionaire-worshipping country fan made it that far without getting offended.
Spend all our time watching a bad cartoon
In a ill-fitting suit grabbing women by the poon
But that ain’t the problem it’s just the distraction
For all the oligarchs getting in on the action
Democracy propped up
By greed is unsustainable
But total control through facisim is attainable
If you’ve been with Stu long enough to love A Sailor’s Guide to Earth and Sound and Fury, you’re going to love the sound of this one. There are some nods to Metamodern in songs like “Venus” and “Don’t Let Go,” but Johnny Blue Skies seems to be coming into his own after Simpson ditched his OG stage name for 2024’s Passage du Desir. On that album, he admits he couldn’t “tell her if I had to/who I am,” and on this one, he’s loud and proud about “learning how to turn ADHD into hyper-focus,” and “weaponizing my autism to shit out an opus.” Maybe it’s the therapy he mentions in that same verse, or maybe we’re watching a legend enter a new form.
I, for one, am happy to help Johnny “Make America Fuk Again.”
