With 2023 now in full flight, multi-award-winning pop singer-songwriter, actor and philanthropist Jann Klose releases his seventh studio album, a 12-track collection of arguably his most considered and commanding work yet.
Filled with no less than ten original tracks, along with an arresting acoustic version of “Love You The Most” featuring Alicia Madison and an equally intoxicating, passion-filled Spanish rendition (“Te Amaré Más”), Surrender is steeped in pop brilliance.
More info about Jann Klose’s New Album
Musically, Surrender is filled with everything from infectious topical Top 40 familiarity, all while teasing the fringes of Americana, flirting with rock and getting up close and personal with heartfelt ballads. In essence, there’s something on Surrender we all will want to submit to, over and over again.
As the next exciting chapter, post-2018’s In Tandem stellar success, the bridge to Surrender was littered with cataclysmic encounters. Death, rebirth, collaboration, positivity and partnerships that, out of the ashes of global adversity, was born and not a moment too soon if only to heal and inject positivity the world so critically needs.
Rebirth
“It’s been said to me that each time you make an album, you die a little,” Jann recalls smiling. “There is so much work, and it does get overwhelming at times, and yet you just have to truck on.”
What Jann Klose is ‘surrendering’ to is intentionally ironic. “It’s not meant in the sense of giving up, rather quite the opposite, he asserts. Surrender is all about letting go. The record has many themes; each song is different, but surrendering involves stepping back and responding rather than reacting to something. It involves having more self-control.”
Investment
At its core, Surrender is made up of a four-year journey in creation, filled with great talent, many of whom Jann has only recently met after having collaborated remotely until now. “At that time, we couldn’t be in the same room. They told us we couldn’t,” Jann recalls. “The situation was so unreal and unknown; we didn’t know how things would play out.
“The pandemic played a critical role in this album’s making,” Jann Klose adds. “My manager, Gary Salzman, succumbed to Covid-19, may he rest in peace, very early on. For context, I had just signed with Big Management in the US, and Gallo in South Africa, to release, In Tandem at the time, and then the world simply stopped.
Sharing
“`I made that record in South Africa, at the Academy of Sound Engineering (ASE), and yes, it was a whirlwind. I was in South Africa with Shekhinah, Karen Zoid, Tamara Dey, Ziyon, and RJ Benjamin, who produced, In Tandem, and then started working on what would become Surrender. “ Jann Klose recalls.
Jann Klose was invited to a second BMI-organised writer’s camp back in South Africa a year later, and on the very first day, he wrote what would become “Love You The Most”, which now appears on Surrender.
Big Management released it as a single soon after the writer’s camp, and the song was used to promote a 2019 Amazon movie titled Married Young.
After that happened, suddenly, the gear shifted. “That song really did something in the US,” Jann Klose recalls. “We got onto Top 40 radio for the first time, and tragically, the pandemic hit, but we kept going, despite it all. The video blew up on YouTube, and sadly, this success started to happen after Gary had passed.”
Direction
The first single from the new album arrived in the form of “Pilot Light”, a track written during a fraught time in the world and best summered up as follows: There is no time more prescient than now for a song the calibre of “Pilot Light” to guide the way.
Suppose there was ever a moment when human emotion and authenticity were lacking. In that case, this track highlights our collective vulnerability while celebrating our resilience to overcome life’s worst.
With acclaim and acknowledgement of Jann’s talent now actively installed, what the world went through over the next two years informed Surrender’s 2023 arrival.
Commitment
Because of what happened and how it happened, Jann lyrically and melodically built out a body of work that, upon listening now, is ironically upbeat, given what it took to realize.
“It is a very ‘up’ album,” Jann Klose concurs with a smile. “Much has to do with my co-writer on six of the ten songs, Alex Forbes. We met after “Love You The Most” came out. She’d already written several hit songs; she wrote Taylor Dayne’s “Don’t Rush Me” and a bunch of hits with Chic/Nile Rogers, but she remains as humble as the day is long about it all.
Creation
“Alex and I met after I first moved to New York City, then lost touch completely, and years later, we serendipitously reconnected on Facebook,” Jann Klose continues. “Once we relinked, one of the first songs we wrote together became “Surrender”, the album’s fourth single and title track.
Alex was in Manhattan; I was in Queens, and right through the pandemic, we created a bubble and powered through it all, regardless of the insane situation we were all in. She’s fearless, and I love her for that. If anything, it ignited what Surrender has become.”
The two met up every other week and poured through what they were each going through personally and professionally; they bonded through the catastrophe of it all.
“They were in the heart of cancel culture – shows died, entertainment crashed, and yet, these two got busy making hay yet to be harvested.
“The entire writing process was inspiring,” Jann Klose recalls. “One of Surrender’s early singles, “Sugar My”, made it into the Top 40 in the US and a Hot Hit on Jacaranda [FM] in South Africa. It is a gentle reminder that our collective investment is heard and heralded, regardless of what it took us to create it all.”
With five singles already successfully landed, including “Flesh and Blood”, Surrender has five more ripe and ready tracks to be plucked and played on high rotation well into 2024.
“Each song, each album is, if nothing else, an offering,” Jann concludes. “That’s how I feel about it. This is what I do, this is what I love, and I am offering it. The rest is out of my control.”
Jann Klose returns to South Africa at the end of March for the ‘Surrender’ Album Tour, which will see Jann perform in the Western Cape, KZN and Gauteng.
Watch this space for updates in the Music News category on SA Music Zone.
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