[Cover photo credit to Annie Bartholomew]

Alaska-based singer/songwriter Josh Fortenbery has released the single and video for “Nobody Is Pleased,” a live show favorite, which “considers how frustrating behaviors become second-nature.” 

The song is the latest single from the album Tidy Memorial, out Oct. 10, 2025, Fortenbery’s second album. The accompanying video is “a surreal interpretation of what it means to understand shortcomings, but continue to model the same patterns.”

Fortenbery says:

I wanted to make a video imagining what it would be like if someone was immune to the inspiration of The Muses—if they trailed behind an anxious, depressed shut-in rather than a Greek hero or poet.

Situated in Juneau, Alaska, often becomes somewhat of a DIY project for Fortenbery. Fortenbery worked with fellow Alaskan Justin Smith as his co-Producer, who loaded his collection of boutique mics and handmade analog studio equipment on a truck and ferried his gear east.

Half the album was tracked inside a local house, a mobile studio constructed in its living room, and the other half at a hotel that was closed for the winter, surrounded by chairs that were stacked and stored for the off-season.

Fortenbery shares:

What we didn’t know ahead of time was that the heat was barely working and the weekend we were recording would be in the single digits. We ended up setting up space heaters to keep the room above 50 degrees, but it was definitely challenging to keep our fingers warm while we played.