Junior Boys

While Junior Boys’ sleek yet emotive songs bear the influence of the most lustrous synth-pop of the ‘80s, the Canadian duo’s sound has always pointed toward the genre’s present and possible futures, too. Founded in Hamilton, ON, in 1999 by Jeremy Greenspan and Johnny Dark—whose role was taken by Matthew Didemus in 2003—Junior Boys made a startling debut with 2004’s Last Exit, which situated Greenspan’s breathy, intimate vocals and melancholy lyrics amid a rich array of electronic rhythms and textures drawn from house, minimal techno, and other sounds more readily associated with dance floors than lonely bedrooms. On 2006’s So This Is Goodbye and 2009’s Begone Dull Care, Greenspan and Didemus continued to expand their music’s stylistic scope while maintaining the songs’ immediacy. Though the duo’s productivity slowed as the two worked on other projects through much of the 2010s—including Greenspan’s productions for electro-pop artist Jessy Lanza—the spellbinding future soul of 2016’s Big Black Coat and often more serene contents of 2022’s Waiting Game bolstered Junior Boys’ reputation as forward-thinkers.