The singer-songwriter writes perfect love songs.
Hes never been in love.
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Charlie Puth goes right for the pop-music rackat Metropolis Vintage.
He thumbs through about a hundred of them, brow furrowed.
Im surprised theres not more New York hip-hop, he says.
A shirt from N Syncs first stadium tour almost makes him jump up and down with glee.
But I love Drive, by Incubus.
It reminds me of 2003 in the best way.
For the record: Incubus released Drive in 1999, a correction Puth might shudder to read.
It just squawked out a B-flat.
The Beatles cover softly playing at the Rose Bar, where were hanging out for the day?
Thats in G major.
[It] felt like a Twinkie factory, he says.
Very manufactured, nothing had any personality to it.
It drips with an excited, lonely horniness in the way an ideal pop record should.
In 2019, Puth reset again with three radically different singles from an album expected in 2020.
Instead, I Warned Myself is about heartbreak but sexy.
Its punctuated with a choking sound.
Puth is from New Jersey and graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2013.
(See You Again was the biggest rap record in a decade until Old Town Road.)
I dont know if its been done super-well before, but maybe I can do it.
The pop-savant thing he cant help.
Im really surprised that Oops!
I Did It Again wasnt a No.
1 song, he says, about 15 years after anyone else wondered about that.
Its funny and beguiling how hes both super-famous and as insecure as any other 20-something.
Im just a big, confused individual, he says.
Im finding more out about myself every day.
Things I never knew about myself.
He had his second therapy session the day before we meet.
I can usually distract myself, my mind, with music.
But for the first time, I couldnt.
Puth reads his own press and has a social-media instinct to overshare.
Before he answers my third question, he moves my recorder closer to him.
I just wanna ensure you dont miss out, he says.
He dangles this fact, urging me to ask him about it.
Several years ago, I was in a very emotionally taxing relationship.
It started to change my personality drastically.
From the outside, the relationship was pristine, he says.
But it felt toxic and twisted to him.
Its weird hearing such a happy song on the radio and knowing what it really is about.
Last year,he saidhe wanted to be the most approachable pop star there is.
Thats still true, but hes just as interested in playing with form and sound.
He put a cowbell ring in Attention, a choice his co-producers thought was meant to be ironic.
Puths music, though, is notably without irony.
Its a rhythmic pocket thats just feeling, he says of the cowbell sound.
He likes placing odd sounds in songs where they shouldnt make sense.
So the music he understands instinctively.
Hes less assured about his songwriting, which he quickly dismisses as simple.
He gets scared that his fans are outfeeling him, that theyre more emotionally advanced than his music.
He kind of Freudian-slip says, Well, of course, you know, youre really beautiful.
And whoever fucking filmed that was so genius to not film him saying it, he says.
They kept it on her face the entire time.
It was almost an awkwardly long shot.
She says, You think Im beautiful?
Puth is practically bouncing in his seat as he recounts this.
I just get fucking chills!
All over my You think Im beautiful?
I live for that fucking moment, man, in songwriting.
How do I get that moment and put it into a song?
In this metaphor, Puth is Silverstone, or maybe hes Rudd and the song is Silverstone?
Either way, he takes out his phone andfinds the scene on YouTubejust to confirm Im following along.
Its a paradox Puth thinks about a lot: Hes writing and producing endlessly listenable songs bops, even!
about relationships hes still chasing in real life.
Ive never felt so enamored with somebody that I cant bring myself to move on.
And Im not proud of that, he says.
I want to have heartbreak, as masochistic as that is.
He just turned 28, but he thinks of himself as a late bloomer emotionally.
I didnt experience a lot of things that people in their teens experience, he says.
I didnt even lose my virginity till I was like 21.
Everything was super-delayed for me, cause I guess I was always just so focused on the music aspect.
So now Im having delayed emotions.
Im starting to feel all these things that I shouldve felt about people, anyone, long ago.
So what is Puth actually looking for, other than a girlfriend?
Its like making a song that many people can relate to.
But if it just happens naturally, you know He stops himself.
Did I compare writing a song to finding someone to be in love with?
Yes, I did.
But thats the only thing that I can relate it to.
