This release includes content in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos.
Shortly after Shawn Mendes released his self-titled third album in 2018, the superstar hit a rough patch. “I was coming off the back of a couple really big songs and was just so driven by my ego,” he tells Apple Music, explaining that he’d become laser-focused on cranking out hit singles. “It’s addictive… It’s destructive. You miss out on the most beautiful part, which is the process.” Through meditation, journaling, and self-care, Mendes reconnected with the joys of making music and wrote two of his most personal songs to date: the Justin Bieber collaboration “Monster” and “Song for No One,” both of which appear on his wide-eyed fourth album Wonder. The project portrays an older, more mature musician than the one we knew. On this album he’s spiritual, connected, and blissed out, deep in love and lost in thought. “I’m still trying to know myself,” he says, “but that’s the beauty of it. This [album] is like an audio scrapbook. It shows the things I thought about—how fearless I was, but also how scared I was.”
Written and recorded in California and eventually Miami, where he moved in with girlfriend Camila Cabello and her family during the pandemic, the album is as much about discovering love’s little delights as it is about seeing the big picture. “Quarantine has been really hard, but something beautiful came out of it: stillness,” he says. “When my head wasn’t so consumed with what people thought and how many likes or streams I was getting, I was able to think, like, ‘What is happening in this world? How do I feel about it? And what can I do?’”
Although the album wrestles with heavy themes—the dark side of celebrity (“Monster”), loneliness (“Call My Friends”), and the urge to settle down too soon (“24 Hours”)—they’re packaged in soaring, larger-than-life pop songs that feel light, bright, and confident. Mendes hasn’t retreated from fame so much as finally seized it. On the title track, which he calls “the doorway to the album,” he takes us through some of what’s been weighing on his mind—truth, masculinity, authenticity, fear—but nothing can compete with the euphoria of first love. “A lot happens when you fall in love for the first time,” he says. “It makes you want to do things for the right reasons—to make sure you’re really enjoying it. Otherwise, I’d rather watch movies with her all day.” He wrote the song on a seaside cliff in Carmel, California, while pondering big questions: “I wonder if I’m being real, if I speak my truth or filter how I feel, what it’s like to be my friends.” These things didn’t just appear, he clarifies, but were born of rigorous, earnest introspection. “It takes work and time to figure out your truth. But in these moments of stillness and clarity, I was like, ‘Oh, this is what it means to be close to yourself.’”
All Apple Music subscribers using the latest version of Apple Music on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV can listen to thousands of Dolby Atmos Music tracks using any headphones. When listening with compatible* Apple or Beats headphones, Dolby Atmos Music will play back automatically when available for a song. For other headphones, go to Settings > Music > Audio and set the Dolby Atmos switch to “Always On.” You can also hear Dolby Atmos Music using the built-in speakers on compatible** iPhones, iPads, and MacBook Pros, or by connecting your Apple TV 4K to a compatible TV or AV receiver. Android is coming soon.
*AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, BeatsX, Beats Solo3, Beats Studio3, Powerbeats3, Beats Flex, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro
**Works with iPhone 7 or later with the latest version of iOS; 12.9-inch iPad Pro (3rd generation or later), 11-inch iPad Pro, iPad (6th generation or later), iPad Air (3rd generation), and iPad mini (5th generation) with the latest version of iPadOS; and MacBook (2018 model and later).