Charlie Burg

“On and On” might be the most aggressive step in a new direction so far from Charlie Burg, the Detroit-born, New York-based singer, songwriter and producer. It has pop DNA, at once lean and airy with a huge, shuddering bassline and taut drums underneath an instantly memorable vocal hook. “It feels like a minimalist approach to a maximalist form, and that’s an approach I’ve never taken before,” says Burg, who wrote “On and On” with his friend and fellow artist Oren Levin.

A song about moving forward despite indecision, “On and On” is Burg’s first new music in over a year. The track took shape when he returned home after his first headline tour in late 2022, and was looking to counter the more experimental approach he took for his album Infinitely Tall. Burg wanted “On and On” to have an urgent energy, without any extraneous elements. “In the past, it’s been, ‘What can I add?’” says Burg, whose songs reach 1.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify alone, and have garnered more than 300 million streams. “But pulling back, making sure I had only the essentials, that was something I needed to do both in my music and in my life.”

Burg made his debut in 2015 with the mixtape Blue Wave Mosaic, hitting his stride with a string of singles and EPs that followed. It culminated in his first full-length album, 2022’s Infinitely Tall, a sprawling effort co-produced by Mike Malchicoff. Along the way, Burg has performed headline shows across the globe.