The Chainsmokers Tease Unexpected Surprises Coming Over The Course Of 2018

The Chainsmokers have had a bit of a tumultuous start to 2018. Things started off on the wrong foot when footage of Alex Pall cheating on his long time girlfriend hit the internet, and then their first single of the year ‘Sick Boy’ has been met with mixed reviews.

While maybe January did not go as planned, the guys have not let that discourage them at all and have take to social media to tease some seriously big surprises for the remainder of 2018. They say that we will never be able to guess what is coming next – collaborations? Special performances? – only time will tell, but we are hype to see what else The Chainsmokers bring us for the rest of the year.

We got some surprises for our fans this year. Don’t think you’re gonna be able to guess what’s coming next

— THE CHAINSMOKERS (@TheChainsmokers) January 21, 2018

So What Were the Surprises?

Turns out 2018 was a genuinely huge year for the duo. Beyond ‘Sick Boy’ as a single, they built toward a full studio album of the same name, “Sick Boy,” which dropped in December 2018 and expanded on the darker, more socially-aware direction hinted at in that first single. Along the way they kept the collaborations coming too, working with a wide range of artists across the record, and continued touring behind the new material well into the following year.

Looking back, “surprises” was a fair way to describe it – fans going into 2018 expecting more of the sugary pop-EDM that made “Closer” and “Something Just Like This” massive got a noticeably different, more introspective Chainsmokers by year’s end. Not every fan loved the shift, but it showed a willingness to evolve rather than just chase the same formula that made them famous in the first place.

It’s also a solid reminder that the duo’s career has never been one-note. Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall have spent years bouncing between radio-ready pop hooks and moodier, more personal songwriting, and 2018’s pivot toward “Sick Boy” was really just an early example of them refusing to stay in one lane for too long. Whatever you thought of the sound shift, they clearly weren’t interested in coasting on old hits.