More People Should Be Listening to Jordan Ward

Everyone knows (or should) the unspoken rule of wearing headphones in the 21st century. Wire earbuds or the concealed nature of AirPods present some gray area, sure, but there’s nothing remotely inviting about striking up a spontaneous conversation with a person cradled between two headphones. They are a protest to impromptu socializing. Or at least, this is how I use them. But I digress.

Waiting in line for my daily fix of espresso shots, a habit I picked up working double restaurant shifts in the tenth grade, I got a soft tap on the shoulder. With my headphones hugging my head, I was taken aback by this gesture. It isn’t often that a stranger refuses to abide by the headphone rule on a whim. (I realize that my pessimistic verbiage makes me come across bitter, but understand, I was listening to Jordan Ward). I turned around, lifting only the right headphone, letting it hover just above my ear to hear what this stranger had to say without completely leaving the musical dimension I’d just settled into. “What’re you listening to?”, he asked. It was the first week of February and he wore a breezy sleeve-cut T. We looked funny standing side by side, me in my heavy black winter coat while he let his arms dangle about freely. “Jordan Ward”, I said, holding up my phone to let him see the FORWARD cover.

“I don’t know him”, he said, squinting at my lock screen to determine if his response was correct. 

“Really?”

“You just looked so lost in the song, I had to ask.”

Now, I’ll propose a revision to this unspoken rule. If a song is so good, so compelling that it takes over your body, so much so that a stranger would notice and want to enter that space with you, then the headphones do become an invitation to conversation. 

I’m embarrassed, partially, but not surprised that Ward’s music could be witnessed through my body. I’d be too hasty to call Ward’s 2023 release, “FORWARD” his magnum opus, as the artist is quite frankly just gaining his deserved recognition by the industry. Yet, what Ward has created with “FORWARD”, whether it be his second or tenth album, is a mastery worth our attention. 

This album is an instrumental play on breath and water, simulating a vibration that floods the body. I hesitate to frame Ward’s artistry by comparison as any reputable journalistic piece would because I believe that the sound he’s developed is distinct. He has the vocal intonation of Sampha with a Smino-like charisma that bleeds through in his beats. His sound is developed and palpable. Even still, Ward’s youthful disposition can be felt not just vocally but lyrically. This makes his music almost relieving, leaving us to sit with what is both new and unchanged in the present, using reminiscence as a vehicle for moving forward rather than standing stagnant.

The album’s opener, “BUSSDOWN” has an ineluctable nostalgic feel. There is nothing forcefully optimistic about Ward’s lyricism here. In his almost choral vocal layering, Ward leaves space for the waves of regret that come with moving forward as an inevitable and necessary proponent of growth. This is the only song on the album that invites listeners to look back. These two minutes hit like a camcorder film reel you didn’t care to look at until you moved out of your parent’s house, evoking something deeply humanizing in a brief recollection of the simplicity of childhood. With “BUSSDOWN”, Ward gives us an opportunity to sit in the past, one last time, before taking us “FORWARD”.

The album quickly transitions into Ward’s distinctly playful, bouncy beats with “IDC” and his most notable, “FAMJAM4000”, which marked itself as the “FORWARD” fan favorite. The rise and fall of the synth layered with Ward’s casually harmonious cadence flow straight to the neck. If you’re particularly vulnerable to the beat of a dynamic funk, a bit of a head-bop might creep up on you. “FAMJAM4000” easily established its place on the album for its compellingly simplistic feel. It’s a little capsule of early love, void of complication or question, only the giddy feeling in your chest that reminds you of the first time your stomach ever turned for another person. Like a new infatuation, this song has you noticing the world with a keen appreciation for life and for feeling.   

If you do know Jordan Ward, you most likely know “WHITE CROCS”. The masterful production of this piece coined the rhythm of the entire album. Jordan Ward worked with Lido, the Norwegian producer who has discreetly enfolded his Electronic flare into the music of some of contemporary Pop, Rap, and R&B’s most notable artists. The backtrack of “WHITE CROCS” is so poignant, any listener will be hooked just one second in. Quite frankly, the song doesn’t beg for a lyrical breakdown. Ward’s vocals take a reasonable backseat to let the synthesized instrumentals flow through the generic lyrical makeup of the piece. While the lyrics fall flat, “WHITE CROCS” doesn’t necessarily beg for substance as its foundational production carries the brunt of the song’s popularity, and for good reason. Each beat of the synth feels like a five-pound weight lifting from your chest to your head with each hit flowing through the body in an addictive repetition. The first beat is muffled, then increases in voracity, so as to devour you before lingering at its final chorus. Between the breathiness of the pulsating synth and the juxtaposing weight of the water-like drum beat, Lido and Ward developed a sound that syncs to the cadence of the human body. 

With all praise to “WHITE CROCS”, the song is just an introduction to a mid-album sandwich of the best-produced beats on the track. If anything, “WHITE CROCS” might serve solely as an attention grab to wake us up to the mastery of “PRICETAG/BEVERLYWOOD” and “DANCE MACHINE”. “PRICETAG/BEVERLYWOOD” opens with a play on audio stagnation before falling into the lyrical substance of the piece. With a predominantly electronic sound, the song integrates subtle blips of symphonic strings, complementing Ward’s raw vocal intonation with a classical uplift. The all-too-relatable disappointment of love lost that is sung in “PRICETAG/BEVERLYWOOD” is relieved by the playfully nonchalant regard for love affairs conveyed in “DANCE MACHINE”. The rhythm of this piece is a plea to let go of unrequited love. I’m not suggesting that this is poetic lyricism. The connection in “DANCE MACHINE” is vulgar and fleeting, void of any romance that we’d consider worth our time. Yet, in this sense, the song is a praise to the frivolous ecstasy of attraction. The brief encounters of infatuation that go nowhere and mean nothing, yet indicate the innately human desire for deep connection which we temporarily replace with passing attraction. 

So you may be wondering, which song was I listening to that made this guy interrupt my “FORWARD” trance? And evidently, it was Ward’s title track. This song is a coincidental premonition of the success of his debut album. Saturated with an early Smino-inspired production, “FORWARD” is a tribute to everything that got him to where he is now. Perhaps the most lyrically dense track on the record, “FORWARD” is Ward’s declaration of who and what his artistry is for. It’s an homage to the joint endeavor, sacrifice, love, and loss that art is born of. While profound, the image he creates is still soft, only an invitation for insight that can be enjoyed with or without recognition. But should you allow yourself to feel Ward’s story, it will seep into your body’s movement as resonance.

This is all to say, more people should be listening to Jordan Ward. And more people should talk in line at coffee shops. Unlike the obtrusive nature of headphones, music was made for connection, as were we.