Stream: Street Joy, ‘For What It’s Worth’

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Street Joy (Photo by Kevin Coffey)

Street Joy sailed through the middle part of last decade churning out scratchy, catchy singles that drew from ’60s and ’70s garage-rock, soul and power-pop. It led up to Street Joy’s 2015 self-titled album, a collection of lovingly unvarnished, heart-on-the-sleeve rockers that lacked nothing in immediacy.

The duo then all but vanished, and somewhere along the way Jason DeMayo and Scott Zimmerman parted ways. DeMayo continued Street Joy as a solo project, surfacing again in 2019 for a couple of singles before returning in a big way last week.

That’s when, without the fanfare it deserved, DeMayo released the second Street Joy album, “For What It’s Worth,” basically just sending it out in to the world with little promotion. “I think the core of it is that I’m just disillusioned by the promo process,” he says. “I figured why not just put it out. … After all, the [shrug emoji] is in the Street Joy DNA.”

DeMayo made the record almost entirely himself in his Highland Park studio, and if he’d had somebody advocating for promotion, they might have pointed to the tense rocker “Inside Out” or the soaring, lovelorn choruses on “Hurt Me” and “Dreaming of You” as highlights. There’s a healthy dose of classic-rock swagger on “Sooner or Later” and an even healthier personal inventory on the affecting “27.” Synths enter the picture on “Make It Me Feel Rong.”

For fans of guitar bands and underdog DIY projects, “For What It’s Worth” transcends the shoulder-shrug emoji. Maybe use a high-five instead.

||| Stream: “Inside Out,” “Hurt Me” and “Dreaming of You”

||| Also: Stream “For What It’s Worth” in its entirety

||| Previously: “Telephone,” “Long Time Ago”