Joji: Piss in the Wind (Deluxe) Review
REVIEW
By Krista Orejudos
7/9/26
Courtesy of Spotify
Piss In The Wind (Deluxe) Is Released On June 4 + Album Cover Analyses
“PITW is just now coming to life, and I hope we can learn to sit with this album just like how Joji sat with it for the past 4 years.”
I ended my PITW review with the line above four months ago, and I must say I didn’t think I would be back four months later to write about Joji again, much less, writing a review on the deluxe version of PITW.
I may have been onto something when I said that PITW is a call back to In Tongues (2018) because this was the only other Joji album to have a deluxe version. I drew connections between both albums in my first review and to see more coincidences like this add up, it makes me believe this may not be a coincidence after all.
So, how are we feeling Joji fanatics? Have you spent the past four months sitting with PITW? Did you expect 9 additional songs to be added right before he started his 2026 Solaris tour?
The timeline leading up to this sneaky deluxe drop goes something like this: Joji releases his US tour dates on March 5, he stops by Coachella to perform his featured part on Italian DJ Anyma’s “Beautiful” on April 19 which is followed shortly by the announcement of an Asia tour on April 21. Finally, he promotes the Solaris tour nonstop with teasers between May 20 – May 29.
By the time I opened my Spotify on June 4, I felt like the app was playing mind games with me. Below my top 8 most recently played playlists, my eyes read “Piss In The Wind (Deluxe)”.
The album cover was no longer colored in just black and red; there was now a blend of green, a pinch of yellow, a hint of blue, and a smidge of orange, working together to surround this lonely tumbleweed tree.
If the original album cover depicted the extremities of what the world could look like right before it ends, then this new image carries the same sentiment but with less intensity. I don’t mean to say the imagery is moving away from being dystopic, I mean to say it’s similar to the feeling of a burden being lifted off of your shoulders. You feel lighter despite the density of whatever pain, guilt, and trauma remains, and when you look at the deluxe cover, its lighter shade is represented in both a figurative and literal sense.
Maybe it’s Joji’s way of reminding us of how even when you think your world is going to end, your world will not end. Maybe it’s not so much about seeing the end of your world as it is to understanding why it’s even falling apart in the first place.
Joji is a Psychomarketing Master
I didn’t listen to PITW Deluxe right away on June 4, but my ears did catch a bit of “Bluffin’” playing as the audio for a few fan-edited Joji content throughout that day. I couldn’t blame other online fans for not holding back on this deluxe celebration because nobody could’ve foreseen such a violent jump from 21–30 songs with a new runtime at 1 hour and 7 minutes.
He was already being generous enough to add the “DYKILY (2017 Demo Version)” on the original album and then he goes ahead and casually hands us 8 more songs to listen to. It’s un-Joji like in the most Joji like manner for him to pull a fast one over our heads wearing such an innocent PR face as if he didn’t just give us more incentive to want to see him perform live at a show near our city.
As a callback to my first PITW review, I would like to once again say how Joji is a psychomarketing master. Since the very beginning of the PITW promotions, he was ragebaiting us with the Jijo doppelganger and to make up for it, this deluxe album could be seen as his way of apologizing. It’s not just an apology for using someone else to impersonate him but it’s also a thank you gift to his fans who’ve been waiting patiently for him to return.
Luckily, I am going to his Seattle concert on Sunday, July 19, so I am in for a very sweet treat!
“Blah Blah” Analysis
I was most looking forward to singing along to everyone’s favorite, “Slow Dancing in The Dark,” yet after listening to PITW deluxe, my answer has changed. “Blah Blah” is now my new “Slow Dancing in The Dark.”
“Blah Blah” is a return to his yearning roots, specifically the yearning roots from Nectar where they were polished to perfection to match its cinematic production. At the same time, “Blah Blah” contains instrumental influences from “Die For You,” especially in the parts where Joji is vocalizing his reverbs and in the back, you hear a 1, 2, 3 boom-chak snare drum rhythm colliding with melodic windchimes.
Stylistically, “Blah Blah” opts for a faster upbeat band tempo, causing its dream state harmony to not have the same depressive fervor as “Die for You.” Lyrically, the song is the opposite of “Slow Dancing in The Dark,” where he was once pushing away the other person to protect them from himself, he is now the one being pushed away and begging them to “Tell me that you love me just because.”
Having met someone who can match his level of selfishness, someone who has control of their toxic game of push and pull, it causes him to actually fall in love with their emotional unavailability. It’s quite ironic considering how a lot of his songs depict him using his emotional unavailability as a cover up to hide his insecurities and to end his relationships.
“Tell me that you love me just because” and the lyric from “Slow Dancing in The Dark,” “Give me reasons we should be complete,” is his indirect way of wanting the other person to ask him to stay. When the question to stay is never asked of him, he defaults to being in denial.
Joji’s In Denial-ism
Joji’s denial-ism is what the second half of PITW is all about. It adds another complex layer to the overarching circular tension of the entire album because previously the conflict was just between his desire to be vulnerable and his inability to escape his self sabotaging patterns. With a new focus on his in denial-ism, we hear it more explicitly in songs like “Bluffin’,” “Kill The Geese,” “skin cells,” and “FTC.”
“Bluffin’” is the perfect example where Joji dares his situationship to “Keep bluffing and doubling down,” but the lyric itself can be thrown back in his face as he is also trying not to fold in their presence. In “Kill The Geese,” he outright admits, “I am in the plaza and I’m tryna forget about you,” while he knows “things will never be the same,” in “skin cells.”
Though there is no denying how much he wanted this failed romance to work out long term, Joji ends the deluxe album with “FTC,” standing for “Fuck The Club,” a distorted song combining slow piano, guitar waves, and off-pitch harmonizing. This song touches back to the 13th song of PITW, “CAN’T SEE SH*T IN THE CLUB,” except now he realizes there’s no point in going if he’s just using the club as another excuse to get over someone.
“FTC” also has strong lyrical and sonic ties to “Dior,” the final song of the original PITW album. Throughout Dior, he asks “Will I see you again?” and proclaims “I’m yours forever” and he doubles down on this confession in “FTC” by saying, “I’d rather be next to you no more living lies you’ll be here for life.”
But will they be there for him in this life? Or is that his in denial-ism taking over again at the end to cope with a loss he knows he can’t make up? Maybe he’ll answer these questions in his next album and that album’s deluxe release, all of which may come sooner than we think.
Until then, we will continue to enjoy PITW Deluxe as Joji brings it to life during his Solaris tour!
Listen to Piss in the Wind (Deluxe)
