Underrated Albums of 2020, Vol. 5: Dijon – How Do You Feel About Getting Married?

Dijon’s last project slipped through the cracks of 2020

Dijon Duenas is a musical savant, to the tune of over 80 million streams on Spotify. His sophomore project, How Do You Feel About Getting Married? released in May 2020 saw the artist taking a chance on trying out a new sound — one that went relatively unnoticed.

Coming off the release of Sci Fi 1 in 2019, Dijon’s sound was a fusion of genres — a delicate blend of folk guitar with R&B that was led with a wide range of vocals. How Do You Feel About Getting Married? brought back that same gentleness that Dijon explored on Sci Fi 1, doing so in a way that’s oriented more on ambient music — a sound that you can close your eyes to.

Opening up with the short song “do you light up?”, the 6-track EP spans just 15 minutes. With Dijon’s gentle vocals and harmonies backed by simple finger picking and light keys playing, this opener feels reminiscent of Frank Ocean’s earlier work, blended with a touch of electronica from The 1975.

Still, Dijon’s merit is not based on other artists he may sound like. How Do You Feel About Getting Married? sees him testing a more experimental sound compared to his earlier work.

The project’s second track “alley-oop” is essentially the title track of the project, with his woozy vocals singing, “Hey slim, how do you feel about getting married? / We don’t have to wait forever, and you don’t have to know the answer right now.” Delivered with the combination of soft guitar and a simple drum beat, Dijon’s finesse in producing the track himself allows the vocals to be the focal point of the song.

Even though the capacity to self produce has become increasingly common with indie artists, credit has to be given where it’s due — Dijon self-produced four of the tracks on How Do You Feel About Getting Married? 

As the EP continues, there is a continuation of the project’s narrative, a speaker asking his subject about marriage. On the fourth track, “dance song,” Dijon sets the mood with a languid and airy song that is built on light guitar strumming — again placing the sung poetry to be at the focus.

With tracks “hunni” and “jesse,” Dijon lulls the project to its end on a mellow note. If “hunni” is day, then “jesse” is night. Whereas “hunni” is the most upbeat track on the project, “jesse” is equally as calm of a song, one that musically brings to mind Frank Ocean’s “Seigfried.” With “jesse,” the last track of the project, the concept of marriage throughout the EP comes full circle with lyrics like, “He could break all his promises. But when I see Jesse I smile.”

How Do You Feel About Getting Married? definitely strays from the sounds of tracks like “Skin” and “Drunk” that made Dijon become acclaimed, but you can’t hate a man for trying out something new — it shows that he’s not just in it for the catchy singles, he’s an artist willing to push his own boundaries.

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