Waterparks Release Sixth Studio Album 'JINX'

Waterparks have never been shy about genre-hopping, but "JINX," out July 24 as the Houston trio's sixth studio album, opens with a statement of intent that's hard to overstate: "TELL ME WHY," a track featuring Mark Hoppus, Danny Elfman, Eric Nally and Dillon Francis all on the same song. Pop-punk elder statesman, film-score legend, hip-hop-adjacent vocalist, EDM producer — four collaborators who rarely, if ever, appear on the same credit sheet, let alone the same track.

The 13-song album follows 2023's "INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY" and builds on lead single "PROWLER," released in April as the record's first preview, alongside additional tracks the band has already worked into its live sets, including "ANY MINUTE NOW," "IF LYRICS WERE CONFIDENTIAL" and "RED GUITAR." The rest of the tracklist — songs like "GWEN STEFANI," "NOBODY BUT YOU" and "GIRLS NEED GUNS" — continues the band's pattern of pairing blunt, internet-native song titles with production that swings between pop-punk, electronic flourishes and moments of outright chaos.

That range is the band's whole identity at this point, and it's worth naming why it works for them specifically when it might read as scattered for someone else. Waterparks built its fanbase in the mid-2010s pop-punk revival but never fully committed to the genre's more traditional guitar-and-drums formula, instead treating each album as a chance to fold in whatever new sonic idea frontman Awsten Knight is chasing that cycle. A four-way guest feature spanning generations and genres on a single opening track is a natural extension of that approach rather than a departure from it — a band using its most recognizable collaborators to signal how far it's willing to stretch.

The album arrives after the band wrapped touring across the U.S. and Europe over the past several months, giving "JINX" a built-in, road-tested audience heading into release day rather than a cold launch. Any new tour dates tied specifically to the album would be the obvious next step for this cycle, but for now the release is still the main event, with first-week streaming and chart data expected in the next chart window.

Once reviews start landing in earnest, the album will likely be judged on whether that star-packed opener feels like a genuine creative summit or a gimmick that sets a high bar the rest of the record has to keep meeting. The other key context will be how the four-way "TELL ME WHY" collaboration came together if the band addresses it in press, since that backstory could turn the song from a novelty into the clearest statement of the album's ambitions.