The Black Keys share new single ‘Beautiful People (Stay High)’ and announce album ‘Ohio Players’ featuring Noel Gallagher and Beck

The Black Keys have announced details of a new star-studded album, and shared the lead single ‘Beautiful People (Stay High)’. Check it out below.

• READ MORE: The Black Keys talk returning to the UK and their “epic” new album 

Announced today (January 12), the band’s upcoming album will be titled ‘Ohio Players’, and will arrive as a follow-up to 2022’s ‘Dropout Boogie’.

Scheduled to arrive on April 5 via Nonesuch, it will feature a variety of guest appearances too, including collaborations with the likes of Noel Gallagher and Beck. Pre-order/pre-save it here.

To celebrate the album announcement, The Black Keys have shared the previously-teased lead single: the retro-inspired, feel-good anthem ‘Beautiful People (Stay High)’.

Written by the band’s own Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, alongside help from longtime friends Dan “The Automator” Nakamura and Beck, the joyful track also comes with a vintage-looking music video. The visuals harken back to those of 2011’s ‘Lonely Boy’ – again showcasing the dance moves of the security guard who appeared in it, Derrick T. Tuggle.

“We had this epiphany: ‘We can call our friends to help us make music’,” Carney said of the collaborative approach the band had towards the project. “It’s funny because we both write songs with other people – Dan all the time [as a solo artist and producer], me when I’m producing a record. That’s what we do.”

“No matter who we work with, it never feels like we’re sacrificing who we are,” Auerbach agreed. “It only feels like it adds some special flavour.”

“We just expanded that palette with people we wanted to work with. We were there to support them and their ideas, to do whatever we could to see that moment flourish,” he continued. “But when it came time to finish the album, it was just Pat and me. We’d never worked harder to make a record. It’s never taken us this long to make an album. We took our time and did it right.”

Ahead of the release of ‘Ohio Players’ in April, a new documentary about the band will be given its world premiere at the 2024 edition of SXSW festival.

Titled This Is a Film About the Black Keys, the project will be shown for the first time in March, and traces Auerbach and Carney’s journey from two neighbourhood kids jamming in a basement in Ohio to rock ‘n’ roll superstardom. It was directed by Jeff Dupre, who is best known for his 2012 film Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present.

Last year, The Black Keys spoke to NME about their forthcoming record, in which they discussed working on it with “incredible” Noel Gallagher. “He’s hilarious and super talented,” said Patrick Carney. “We were referring to him as ‘The Chord Lord’ because he’s just a perfectionist with it.”

Noel Gallagher has also commented on the music he’s made with The Black Keys, saying that the songs he’s co-written with them are “fucking amazing”.