Johan Lenox approaches pop music with the curiosity and perspective of a true outsider.Trained in classical music through his teens and intohis twenties, he makes music on an epicscale with instruments that are centuries old; he writes orchestral arrangements and thenmanipulates those sounds digitally to create something uncanny that’s undeniably pop. Hisdebut albumWDYWTBWYGUis animated by skeptical nostalgiafor growing up in someun-idyllic suburb, while simultaneously staring down an uncertain future. It’s a fully realizedannouncement of a new talent, an artist who isn’t reaching for pop-punk or some other bygonesound to articulate generational angst but blazing a different path altogether. His songs arestately and hyper contemporary, as likely to deploy sweeping woodwinds and the BrooklynYouth Chorus as they are trap drum programming.“WhatI admire about pop music is that youcan’t fake it,” Lenox says. “Millions of people have to like the song as a song for it to be a hit.”Lenox isn’t faking a thing