Moody Joody are expanding the world of their debut album Plain Jane with Fantasyland, a shimmering electro-pop track built for dancing through emotional denial.
The Nashville trio — Kayla Hall, Kaitie Forbes and Andrew Pacheco — frame the single as the album’s lighter “Joody” side, pairing synth-heavy production and live drums with lyrics shaped by toxic cycles, romanticised relationships and the temptation to stay inside a comforting illusion.
Due October 30 via Photo Finish Records, Plain Jane moves between darker “Moody” moments and more playful releases, using characters, colour and contrasting sounds to explore self-acceptance, emotional messiness and the freedom of abandoning expectations.
With more than 21 million global streams and recent singles including Suburbia, Little Blue House, Loretta’s Last Call and OOPS!, Moody Joody join FM PRO for a Quickfire 5 on delusion, disco-ball catharsis and building the wider universe of Plain Jane.
…It’s rainbows & butterflies & living with your head in the clouds, which honestly is at least a little bit required to chase the dream of a music career. We’re big thinkers and dreamers.
Q1. Fantasyland introduces the next chapter of Plain Jane. What does the song reveal about the album’s wider world?
Kayla: We speak often about wanting to alternate between “Moody” and “Joody” songs when it comes to how we wanted to approach releasing songs in the album cycle. Fantasyland is a “Joody” song on the record – something a bit more lighthearted that you can dance to, move to, groove to – but it has a bit of a sarcastic edge that was actually born from a very difficult place in a relationship. I think there’s a lot of songs that have double meanings. This album explores a wide range of life experiences & encourages you to find your own meaning within them.
Andrew: Each single that we put out is kind of like us peeling back another layer of the world of “Plain Jane.” It definitely stands out sonically from the songs we’ve released thus far. It’s been pretty intentional for us to keep people on their toes, and build out this world and narrative while highlighting the breadth of the record.
Kaitie: This song is definitely one of the most dancey songs on the album. It’s the part of the album where all of our emotions have been built up, and now we’re releasing them via sobbing on the dance floor under a disco ball.
Q2. The album explores self-acceptance and “owning your humanness.” How does Fantasyland connect with that idea?
Kayla: Writing this song kind of allowed this space to tell a story of not wanting to leave a toxic cycle in a relationship behind, even if that’s what’s best. I think that’s a natural place to be as a human – to romanticize things until you can’t anymore. I wasn’t quite ready to face the reality that my relationship wasn’t what I thought it was and that’s when my therapist gave me the wake up call that I was living in a fantasyland – but I wanted to live there a little bit longer. It’s sometimes easier to live there in that space and I think sonically the production captures that in the moment feeling as well.
Kaitie: This song touches on the delusion that love can put you in. We’ve all been guilty of staying somewhere we know we don’t belong for a little too long, convincing ourselves that “they’ll change” and living in that fantasy.
Q3. Plain Jane is built around characters, stories and a distinct visual identity. Where does Fantasyland sit within that universe?
Kayla: It’s Plain Jane’s world and we’re just living in it! Plain Jane’s story is about burning everything to the ground in order to show up authentically with reckless abandon. It takes a little bit of living in a fantasyland to get there.
Kaitie: There is a little bit of a disco, starry, colorful theme tied into the album to counterpart the darker more melancholy side. We really leaned into the glistening, delusional, romanticizing everything feeling on this one.
Q4. The record is also about breaking expectations and creating your own path. What does Fantasyland say about choosing dreams over conformity?
Kayla: I think there’s times when being delusional can be both harmful and helpful depending on the situation. In relationships where things may be toxic, not so much. In choosing to live and chase your dream and authentic truth, you have to be fiercely living in delulu land.
Kaitie: This song does tap into our magical thinking & whimsy a bit. It’s rainbows & butterflies & living with your head in the clouds, which honestly is at least a little bit required to chase the dream of a music career. We’re big thinkers and dreamers.
Q5. FM PRO TECH Q: Which production choices helped give Fantasyland its own identity while keeping it connected to the album’s wider sound?
Andrew: Honestly it just felt pretty appropriate to pull out all the synths for a song called Fantasyland. There’s this dreamscape that we wanted to create, where the lyric just lives in this sonic space of delusional, feel-good energy.
It’s definitely more electronic leaning than most of the record, but there’s still a band element with the live drums that keeps it tied to the rest of the record.
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