Joff Bush is on a quest for clarity.
“A lot of what we do in the music, and how it interacts with the story, is about creating clarity above everything else,” the composer for Bluey tells Consequence. As an example, he cites fellow Australian children’s entertainers The Wiggles, who “have had a really amazing sense of clarity to their writing.”
Bush plays out a scenario: a song about “going to put different colored blocks together to build a house. And [The Wiggles] would say, Well, are we talking about colors? Are we talking about building blocks? Are we counting blocks?” he asks, ticking off different possible angles for the song. “That was a big mindset that I switched [on] when I started on the show — to go, how do I make this as clear as possible?”
The world is hearing him loud and clear. Bluey is a global sensation thanks in no small part to the music, which Bush has shepherded onto not one, but two solo releases, 2020’s Bluey the Album and now Bluey: Dance Mode!, which arrives in the US alongside the daffodils as if to herald spring.
Bush is aware of the effect Bluey has on kids and parents — perhaps especially parents. I joke that after getting burned out on Cocomelon, we turned on Bluey and held our toddler’s eyes open like that scene from A Clockwork Orange. He chuckles and says, “Make the children enjoy it. I wonder how much that’s part of the successes. [Creator] Joe Brumm was talking about how he didn’t want it to feel loud or obnoxious. And he always wants to make something he would want to watch as well.” Bush smiles. “I wonder. Maybe it’s not popular with kids at all?”
As for those moms and dads, the evidence of their fervor is everywhere. After a recent Consequence article, one person commented, “Bluey made me a better parent.” Bush has even seen fights break out on TikTok over things like the opening theme song, an exuberant piece of music with a few notable pauses to accommodate an on-screen freeze dance — or as the Aussies call it, musical statues.
