Grammy-nominated songwriter, producer, guitarist, and bandleader Cory Wong has teamed up with Stockholm, Sweden-based “twisted pop trio” Dirty Loops for a new collaborative album, Turbo, out today on streaming platforms.
The album arrived on Friday along with a live video for the combo-outfit’s reimagined take on iconic Michael Jackson smash hit, “Thriller”. “Thriller” appears as the penultimate track on Turbo, which also includes pre-release singles “Follow The Light” and “Ring of Saturn”.
Jonah Nilsson sets the tone right away with his uncanny, MJ-level falsetto, but the underlying music sounds less like the original 1982 hit and more like a Steely Dan outtake. Bolstered by the virtuosic bass work of Henrik Linder, the tactile drums of Aron Mellergardh, the rhythmic texture provided by Wong, and the vivid, complex instrumentation by a talented five-piece horn section, the Cory Wong/Dirty Loops version of “Thriller” puts a uniquely enthralling, genre-blending spin on an all-time classic.
Watch Cory Wong and Dirty Loops perform their take on “Thriller” by Michael Jackson below.
Dirty Loops & Cory Wong – “Thriller” (Michael Jackson)
[Video: Dirty Loops]
“My first interaction with Dirty Loops was with the viral videos of them doing insane arrangements of pop songs,” the prolific Cory Wong said of his latest collaborators. “Their musicianship is absolutely top tier. The only thing I thought was, Where’s the guitar?!? As I sat playing guitar along with the videos from my studio, I thought that I should reach out and see if they wanted to collaborate on something. Usually, a collaboration is just one song or a writing session, but I’ve been exploring the idea of doing collaborative albums with other artists because it allows the two visions of the artists to intermingle more and find more unique ways to blend together to create something new.”
Wong continued, “This project really brought a lot of the musical chops side of my playing out that I often restrain from putting on my albums, and I added some restraint to parts of songs that they might get really intricate. It ended up being a perfect representation of both Cory Wong and Dirty Loops as artists and what a true collaborative project can be.”
“This album is to music as The Naked Gun was to movies,” adds Dirty Loops’ Henrik Linder.
You can listen to the entire seven-track release via Spotify below. Pre-order your vinyl copy of the album here.
Dirty Loops, Cory Wong – Turbo – Full Album