Boy Band Icon Creates Frankenstein Album In Time For Halloween
Halloween is right around the corner, and we’re always looking for new ways to get into the spirit of the spooky season. Now, it looks like we’re going to have some new jams to listen to less than a week before the young (and the young at heart) are trick-or-treating for as much candy as humanly possible. NSYNC icon JC Chasez has teamed up with the Golden Globe winner Jimmy Harry to release the Frankenstein-themed concept album Playing With Fire on October 25.
A Literary Take On Frankenstein
While JC Chasez made a name for himself thanks to his boy band’s radio-friendly pop hits, it sounds like his Frankenstein album is going to be surprisingly literary and cerebral. Rather than being based on popular movies (like Universal’s legendary 1931 Frankenstein), Playing With Fire is going to be based on the original Mary Shelley novel. The album will be an ambitious mixture of modern electronic pop and old-school classical music, all of which is meant to create a version of this classic story that we’ve never experienced before.
Inspiration From The Stage
JC Chasez may be the biggest name attached to this project, but it was actually Jimmy Harry who provided the inspirational jolt needed to bring this Frankenstein project to life. Harry’s late mother, Barbara Field, was a playwright who once adapted the classic Shelley story, and her own theatrical interpretation immediately fascinated the NSYNC singer.
Field’s play imagined Dr. Frankenstein and his monstrous creation meeting at the grave of Frankenstein’s wife, giving the creator and his creation a chance (as the press release says) “to understand each other and the reasons for their actions that brutally affected each other’s lives.”
An Ambitious Project
Compared to the original tale and its many adaptations, it seems like JC Chasez’s Frankenstein album is going to have an unambiguously happy ending where the two central characters “eventually find sympathy, love, and forgiveness for each other.”
Playing With Fire gives the singer a chance to demonstrate a full range of skills: he is both the writer of the project and one of its singers (he is joined by Cardamon Rozzi and Lily Elise). You might assume that such a bonkers project is outside of the singer’s typical wheelhouse, and he’d be the first to say that you’re correct.
Embracing The Bigger Picture
According to JC Chasez in a previous interview with Billboard, “There are similarities…and there are some very big differences” between writing pop songs like what NSYNC is known for and writing the musical theater songs of his Frankenstein album. Specifically, “When you’re writing a single for something, you’re just looking to write about what you’re feeling in the moment. When you’re working on a musical, there’s always a bigger picture and the story is always the driving force.”
Perfectly Timed For Halloween
Despite the potential difficulties of writing these very different kinds of songs, JC Chasez is excited about this Frankenstein album specifically because of the challenge. He noted this is “the last thing that I haven’t really dabbled in,” having worked in music, television, and film. For him, this is “the last untapped thing,” and he is eager to finally “experience all sides” of this entertainment spectrum.
From where we’re standing (and munching on far too many Reese’s cups), JC Chasez’s Frankenstein album sounds like the perfect jam for monster-mashers this Halloween season. It will either be a tremendous success or a terrible failure…either way, it should prove to be frighteningly entertaining. Find out whether Playing With Fire is a trick or a treat by streaming it when it releases on October 25.
Source: Billboard
