Inside The Credits 018: Chris Greatti
Chris Greatti & Willow’s Rage To Enlightenment
I like things that come in threes. I tend to be really intrigued by three track sequences on albums and, if you’ve read other entries of this Substack, you may have even seen me point out when producers produce three songs in a row representing a period of significance. Willow (Smith if I even need to say that at this point) has now had one of the most intriguing three ALBUM sequences in modern music. On Friday, she dropped her third of the trio, empathogen, solidifying a four year era of sheer Rock preeminence.
Her first album of the three, 2021’s lately I feel EVERYTHING, was mainly produced by her long-time collaborator and rumored romantic partner Tyler Cole. That album actually culminated a three album run she and Cole had together and was Willow's most Rock/Pop Punk leaning project yet (at the time). It also began a new era fueled by essentially controlled rage. While it was her breakout moment, and resulted in still maybe her most popular song, “transparent soul” feat. Travis Barker, I actually think it is overall the weakest of her last big three (no rap battle). There are a few clear skips to me which still takes nothing away from 75% of the album being an astonishing combination of Paramore coded angst fused with contemporary Alt R&B undertones.
In 2022, Willow came roaring back with even more vigor. Her album <COPINGMECHANISM> revealed cover art which featured a lava lamp colored image of a guitar going through a tv. That’s exactly what the album sounds like. The ramped up energy strewn throughout the project seemed to also result in more cohesion. The songs vivaciously drove into each other, but still left space for valleys of winding pristine melodies. This dichotomy gave the album necessary moments of arresting reprieve. As nearly always happens when something sonic truly cements itself, a new producer entered the mix to help bring everything together. That producer was Chris Greatti, who is credited on every single song of the 2022 musical hurricane.
Willow got that fury out of her and came back now with something in empathogen that is much more cerebral and restrained. The rage has become the undertone. Greatti’s presence and crediting is just slightly less frequent for this album, but still effervescently felt. He assisted Willow in finessing the most poignant musical layers she has to offer and I had to know how he got here.
While he’s had other one-off Producer and Composer credits for other artists (Grimes, blink-182, Demi Lovato & more), since 2017 Chris Greatti has spent most of his time being the main producer for Pop Punk/Metal songstress Poppy and Emo Pop/Rock slasher Yungblud. To be honest, this is the first Inside The Credits I’ve done where I hadn’t heard the majority of the music I would be chronicling beforehand. So I dove in to see what patterns and progressions I could find which precursor the current Willow reign.
The first song Greatti produced for Poppy was immediately eye opening. “My Microphone” from her 2017 album Poppy.Computer, has staccato strummed punchy Punk fueled guitar to match a sleek Bubblegum tone from the singer. At around 35 seconds in, there is also a quintessential transition into soft Pop much like how Willow would later stretch Greatti into more Alt R&B laden pockets momentarily to create more dynamism. The first thing to notice about Poppy is that her lyricism is quite surface level especially compared to Willow and her vocal range seems focused on just a few notes. As much as it may seem so, I don’t mean this negatively, it’s just different styles. It also seems to have acted as a perfect proving ground for Greatti to eventually expand to much more complexity.
Much how Willow did from project to project, Poppy next adopted more intensity. The two tracks Greatti produced for her 2018 album Am I A Girl?, were significantly more hard-nosed and rage-filled. “Play Destroy” feat. Grimes and “X” were fueled by a sudden shift from Punk to Metal. The guitar on each of the tracks sounds like it could be on a Disturbed song, which is wild to listen to against Poppy’s Spice Girls-esque delivery. There are still “field of lilies” sounding Pop transitions, but the other sounds against them feel demonic.
Greatti’s first three Yungblud tracks would arrive in 2019 in “Loner,” “11 Minutes” feat. Halsey & Travis Barker, and “Time In A Bottle.” Much like with Poppy, you can immediately hear how these songs would add useful elements for Willow. Not only is Yungblud a vocalist with much more range, but the depth behind his lyricism is much more potent. Willow is an astute vessel for translating internal emotional wreckage musically and Yungblud has the ability at his best to do that in his own way. His Arctic Monkeys meets My Chemical Romance tone and delivery forced Greatti to dive deeper with the layers of his composing. The sounds now had to be less directly assertive and more hauntingly intertwining.
As I found out from Greatti’s next release with Yungblud, which closed out his 2019, the one missing element left was executing something anthemic. On his track “hope for the underrated youth” from his Ep the underrated youth, Greatti gave Yungblud an open guitar canvas filled with underlying soul. On the pre-chorus he croons, “Just take my heart out/That'd make it better/I won't be sorry/Better late than never,” over building strums that altogether feel like they inevitably get lighters raised in unison. It feels like there is no “<maybe> it’s my fault” or “symptom of life” from Willow without this track.
Of course, after this was when Greatti began creating his best music for both Poppy and Yungblud. Poppy added a more enticing Billie Eilish coded energy folded into her fervor on her next self titled album. The depth Greatti gained helped her powerfully on standout tracks “I Disagree,” “Anything Like Me,” and “Sick of the Sun.” Yungblud would also significantly elevate on his first full length album produced almost entirely by Greatti, weird!. Ballads like “teresa,” “mars,” and “love song” propelled buoyantly off rage-filled heaters like “strawberry lipstick” and “superdeadfriends,” while in congruence they all necessarily complemented an anthem like “god save me, but don’t drown me out.” Greatti had found his equilibrium right before his pinnacle.
The next era crossed over Yungblud’s self-titled second album and Willow’s <COPINGMECHANISM> in 2022. The two singers even met for an incredible collaboration “Memories” on the Yungblud album. The song leaned Willow more into a distinctly Pop pocket than anything from her solo work but really proved how much she could dominate a Pop/Rock space if she wanted to. She and Yungblud’s voices in harmony also sounded like waves crashing into the rocks. Willow would then meld with Greatti’s most striking brush strokes and build two albums/art pieces worthy of their own exhibits. They each seem to represent different reactions Willow has to her building anxiety, either fight through it through thrashing guitar and winding vocal progressions or psychoanalyze oneself over rhythmic patterns that evoke a serpentine path to enlightenment.
Inside The Credits 018: Chris Greatti- The Playlists