Eric Clapton - Meanwhile (2024/2025)

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Eric Clapton - Meanwhile (2024/2025)

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Meanwhile is the twenty-second solo studio album by Eric Clapton. It was released on 4 October 2024 through Bushbranch Records/Surfdog Records. Along with six new tracks, the album also features eight songs Clapton has previously released as singles beginning from 2020, including collaborations with Van Morrison and Jeff Beck.

This record marks Clapton's first studio album since Happy Xmas in 2018, and his first non-holiday studio album since I Still Do in 2016. The artist worked on the album for three years in tandem with British musician and frequent collaborator Simon Climie, who serves as a producer on the entire album and also appears as a featured artist on the track "How Could We Know". The album consists mostly of Clapton's single output starting from December of 2020. Clapton has said that the album itself consists of "all these sort of slightly political comments mixed up with songs that are just songs."

The first of the album's tracks to be released, "Stand and Deliver", "The Rebels", and "This Has Gotta Stop", were the parts of a series of collaborations Clapton had with musician Van Morrison which the pair released under the moniker Slowhand & Van. The three songs were released during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the first and the third tracks garnering controversy due to their anti-mask, anti-lockdown, and anti-vaccine sentiments in light of the health crisis. The second of the series was a duet version of the track "Where Have All the Rebels Gone?" from Morrison's album Latest Record Project, Volume 1, his newest record at the time.

The next song, "Heart of a Child", co-written by Clapton and Italian architect Robin Monotti Graziadei, was released on Christmas Eve of 2021. "Pompous Fool", another song written by the pair, came out on 7 July 2022. This release coincided with the resignation of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, leading some to believe that Clapton, who had criticized Johnson in the past, wrote the song about the politician.

Clapton went on to collaborate with fellow guitarist Jeff Beck on a cover of "Moon River", which was released on 15 May 2023, shortly after Beck's passing four months prior. The cover would also receive a vinyl release on 14 July as a double A-side single, with "How Could We Know" serving as the other song on the single. The latter track features Judith Hill, Simon Climie, and Daniel Santiago.

In honor of country singer Willie Nelson's 90th birthday, Clapton teamed up with American musician Bradley Walker to cover the country standard "Always on My Mind", a song that Nelson famously covered in 1982. The new cover was released 15 September 2023.

In an interview with the Real Music Observer during May of 2024, Clapton first revealed the album, its title, and its prospective release date of autumn that year. On 20 September 2024, the album was officially announced, with the artist also releasing the new song "One Woman" alongside the news. Five unreleased songs from the album, namely "Sam Hall", "Smile", "The Call", "You've Changed", and "Misfortune", were also premiered on Sirius XM Radio's Deep Tracks channel, with one aired every day from 23 to 27 September 2024.

Meanwhile was released on 4 October 2024. Physical vinyl and CD versions of the album released on 24 January 2025.