Out of My Head - (2024)
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Released in 2024, Out of My Head is Shawn's ultimate act of creative catharsis. Hot on the heels of December 2023's Popular with the Unpopular, Shawn found himself haunted by a massive backlog of unreleased history. Between 2013 and 2018, he had written and recorded a prolific six-volume series under the title Out of My Head, originally hosted on SoundCloud.
As he attempted to write brand-new music for 2024, these older tracks kept clawing their way to the surface. Ames realized he had to finish them, polish them, and officially release them to clear the slate for his future.
The road to the finish line was born of sheer resilience. A catastrophic computer meltdown had previously fried the hard drives containing the original project files. Undeterred, Ames salvaged what he could, meticulously layering new instruments over surviving session stems, and completely re-recording other tracks from the ground up. The result is a stunning 10-track "best-of" compilation from those legendary sessions, beautifully reimagined with the sonic clarity and emotional maturity of a seasoned producer.
Out of My Head acts as an emotional prism, reflecting the high-stakes friction of fame, aging, socio-political anger, and the brutal collapse of romance.
The record opens with "From Someone to No One," a heartbreakingly honest confession of a faded spotlight, examining the terrifying feeling of becoming invisible as time marches on. This leads into "Eightball," a dark, metaphorical survival track. Using the imagery of the last billiard ball left on a table before it slips into the corner pocket, Ames captures the claustrophobia of standing alone against the dark.
Shawn balances existential weight with his signature cynical humor:
"Figure It Out" serves up a cheeky, front-row seat to the generational divide, gently roasting social media vanity, colored hair, and TikTok trends over a driving rock beat. "Crockpots and Buses" dives into raw, socio-political frustration, capturing a world on edge where ordinary domestic items are turned into weapons of war while modern politicians duck for cover.
The core of the album belongs to the rise, fall, and wreckage of love:
"Darling Maggie" is a whiskey-soaked, atmospheric crawl through the fog of a volatile, whirlwind relationship.
"My Little Once Upon a Time" and "December" trace the tragic arc of beautiful beginnings that sour into words that "cut deep like a knife," eventually leaving the narrator stranded in the cold.
"Harmony" serves as a bright, romantic oasis on the track list—a sunny, jazzy-driven daydream of unbreakable connection.
The record’s emotional climax arrives with "For the Muse" and "Goodbye." Rather than harboring bitterness, "For the Muse" is a majestic, sweeping tribute to the partner who inspired the music, offering gratitude for the art born from the ashes of their love. "Goodbye" seals the album's thematic loop, accepting the finality of a burning bridge and choosing to step forward into the unknown.
"I just like watching you trying to figure it out."
By breathing fresh life into a decade’s worth of salvaged archives, Out of My Head is a towering achievement of artistic preservation. It is a record that closes a massive chapter of Ames' creative life, leaving the ghosts of the past exactly where they belong—on the tape—so he can step boldly into the light of his next musical era.