OK Orchestra

In February 2020, AJR released the album's first single, "Bang!", which became one of the trio's biggest hits ever in 2021 and in their entire time playing music. The single was originally intended as a track for a deluxe version of Neotheater, however this never came to fruition, and the song eventually became the lead single for the forthcoming album.[4] On August 31, 2020 they released the album's second single, "Bummerland", a song about the band sarcastically expressing their feelings on the COVID-19 pandemic. On December 20, 2020, they announced that OK Orchestra would be the name of their upcoming album, while also releasing the third single from the album, "My Play". It was put up for pre-order on iTunes/Apple Music[5] and showed that the album contained 13 tracks.[3] AJR released the album's fourth single "Way Less Sad" and its music video on February 17, 2021,[6][7] On March 21, 2021, AJR launched OKO World, an interactive experience playable on their official website.[8] AJR released a music video for "OK Overture" and "World's Smallest Violin" the same day the album was released. On June 23, almost three months later, they released a music video for "3 O'Clock Things". Two months afterwards on August 12, a music video for "Christmas in June" was released which featured footage filmed at the Wonderstruck Festival in Cleveland. On February 9, 2022, AJR released a music video for "Ordinaryish People feat. Blue Man Group".

A.D. Amorosi of Variety described the album as "harmonically vocalized, hyper-memoir-centric, atmospheric mélange of pop, hip-hop, and doo-wop with quirky rhythms and a salting of smart-assed They Might Be Giants for tart taste".[2] In a review for AllMusic, Matt Collar wrote that "OK Orchestra isn't just full of hit-worthy pop hooks, it's stage-worthy, ambitious, and full of insights driven by AJR's personal experience", rating the album 4/5.[9] Thomas Stremfel of Spectrum Culture received the album less positively, rating the album 1.25/5 and stating that "hearing the terrible production and cringe-inducing songwriting of OK Orchestra without warning makes for an undeniably engaging listen... Year-end album lists should be filing restraining orders against this album, but that doesn't mean you can't listen to it for a cheap laugh."[10]

OK Orchestra debuted at number 10 on the US Billboard 200 dated April 10, 2021, becoming AJR's second top-10 album. It earned 32,000 album-equivalent units, including 13,000 pure album sales.[11] Although OK Orchestra placed at number 55 on the midweek UK Albums Chart dated March 29, 2021,[12] it did not place in the final listing on April 2.[13] Much of the album's popularity has been contributed to the singles "Bang!", "Way Less Sad", and "World's Smallest Violin".

Credits adapted from Tidal.[14]

AJR

• Jack Met – lead vocals, instruments
• Adam Met – vocals, instruments
• Ryan Met – vocals, production (all tracks), instruments (2, 7), programming (2, 4, 12)

Additional personnel