When Joe Keery stepped out as a presenter at the 83rd Golden Globe Awards in early January 2026, television viewers immediately recognized the charismatic actor who spent nearly a decade playing Steve Harrington in Stranger Things. As the hit series concluded its fifth and final season, chronicling the definitive fate of Hawkins as detailed in the Netflix Report on the finale, Keery occupied an unusually rare pop culture intersection. His most remarkable cultural victory of recent years arrived not through a streaming camera, but through a fuzzy analog synthesizer line recorded under his independent musical moniker, Djo.

"End of Beginning" had a quiet birth in September 2022 on Keery's sophomore studio album, DECIDE. Eighteen months later, the track detonated across the global music landscape, dominating algorithmic video trends, conquering international streaming tallies, and proving that an actor's side project could earn authentic alternative-rock legitimacy.

⚡ Executive Summary:

• The Trajectory: Released without fanfare on September 16, 2022, "End of Beginning" sat dormant before an organic viral surge propelled it into the Billboard Hot 100 top 15 and over one billion Spotify streams.
• The Artistic Catalyst: Grounded in Keery's real-life transition from Chicago's DIY indie circuit to Hollywood stardom, the song connected emotionally through themes of outgrowing a formative era of early adulthood.
• The Creative Validation: Self-released alongside engineer Adam Thein, the track's runaway success allowed Keery to shed the stigma of a novelty actor-musician, transforming Djo into a bona fide festival-headlining act.

DePaul Dorms and Psych-Rock Roots: The Origin of Djo

Long before wearing the sailor suit of Scoops Ahoy, Keery lived packed into shared apartments in Chicago's Logan Square and Lincoln Park neighborhoods. He enrolled in the Theatre School at DePaul University, graduating in 2014. During those formative collegiate years, his creative pulse belonged entirely to the city's fertile garage-rock circuit.

Keery co-founded Post Animal, a psych-rock outfit heavily influenced by Black Sabbath riffs and neo-psychedelic textures. He played guitar and contributed vocal harmonies, traveling between basement venues and sticky bar floors across Illinois. In 2015, Keery booked the role of Steve Harrington in Stranger Things. By the time the Netflix sci-fi series became a worldwide obsession in the summer of 2016, his presence inside Post Animal created an uncomfortable dynamic. Fans began packing small club venues simply to catch a glimpse of an on-screen heartthrob rather than engage with the band's sprawling, eight-minute prog-rock jams.

Recognizing that his runaway Hollywood profile risked distorting the band's identity, Keery amicably stepped down from touring with Post Animal prior to their 2018 full-length debut. He retained an insatiable appetite for songwriting. To protect the music from external celebrity baggage, he developed the Djo persona: an eccentric, wig-wearing, mustache-sporting figure that decoupled the sonic output from his polished screen persona. His 2019 debut album, Twenty Twenty, leaned into retro-futurism and lo-fi psychedelia, establishing that the project was not an actor's vanity exercise.

Crafting DECIDE with Co-Producer Adam Thein

Keery returned to recording amidst long filming pauses, partnering with his long-time creative collaborator and sound engineer, Adam Thein. Working out of Sound Factory in Los Angeles and various home setups, the pair pivoted from the guitar-heavy arrangements of the debut toward a tighter, new-wave sonic palette. The indie synth-pop production that defined their second effort drew directly from artists like Devo, Daft Punk, and Tears for Fears.

When the DECIDE album release arrived on September 16, 2022, through independent distributor AWAL, music critics praised its crisp drum programming and kaleidoscopic hooks. Track six on the album, titled "End of Beginning," clocked in at just two minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Driven by a bright Roland Juno keyboard pattern, driving live drums, and an explosive guitar-driven outro, the song closed a conceptual loop on the record. It captured the exact moment Keery surrendered his twenties and acknowledged that his bohemian life in Illinois had officially vanished.

At launch, the song made minimal mainstream noise. It entered standard indie playlists, garnered admiring reviews from niche music blogs, and settled into modest streaming numbers alongside the rest of the tracklist. Keery did no major television appearances or splashy marketing stunts to force the record into radio circulation.

"And When I'm Back in Chicago": Unpacking the Lyrical Resonance

The enduring appeal of "End of Beginning" rests on its acute emotional specificity. Rather than offering broad, escapist radio pop, the song examines personal rupture. The End of Beginning lyrical meaning tackles the emotional disjunction of visiting a city where you once lived as an anonymous, aspiring twenty-year-old after the world knows your face.

In the opening verses, Keery depicts walking down Fullerton Avenue, reconciling the passage of time with the ghost of who he used to be. The hook arrives with total, disarming earnestness: "And when I'm back in Chicago, I feel it / Another version of me, I was in it." The words struck an immediate chord with listeners navigating post-grad relocations, identity shifts, and the mourning of younger self-images.

The phrase "end of beginning" itself reflects William Wordsworth's concept of emotional recollection in tranquility. Keery is not weeping over his lost past; he is cordially acknowledging that his initial chapter of adult exploration has reached its definitive conclusion. When the distorted rhythm guitars tear open the arrangement at the two-minute mark, the release feels euphoric instead of mournful.

The Algorithmic Cascade: TikTok Sound to Global Streaming Monster

In early February 2024, eighteen months after DECIDE hit streaming services, a user uploaded a travel edit on TikTok using the soaring bridge of "End of Beginning." The audio snippet matched visual cuts of European study-abroad trips, hometown farewells, and nostalgic photo dumps of high school friend groups. Within days, the TikTok viral sound trend snowballed uncontrollably.

The metric trajectory between February and April 2024 outpaced nearly every major-label single released that quarter:

By late March 2024, the song ascended to the No. 2 slot on the Spotify Global Top 50 stream count, trailing only titan releases from Taylor Swift and Future. On the domestic front, the Billboard Hot 100 chart ranking peaked at an astounding No. 11, while simultaneously holding the No. 1 position on Billboard's Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart for consecutive weeks.

Crucially, the song did not rely on standard influencer payola or promotional record-label spending. It was distributed via AWAL, allowing Keery to retain full ownership of his masters. Because the song blew up organically, the profit margins on the catalog windfall flowed directly back to Keery and Thein.

Reclaiming the Stage: The Chicago Homecoming

For an artist who spent years in elaborate disguise to escape his Hollywood celebrity, the track's massive success posed an obvious dilemma: would live audiences treat Djo performances as a concert or as an actor's fan convention? Keery confronted this challenge head-on by performing selective live appearances with his full touring band.

The definitive emotional resolution took place in Chicago. When Keery played the track live in the Windy City, the local crowd bellowed the lyrics back with deafening volume. Thousands of fans screamed the Fullerton line directly into the microphone. It transformed an intimate confession about leaving a city into an anthem of civic celebration.

Music industry observers noted that unlike novelty singles that crash back to zero streams once a viral social media trend cools down, "End of Beginning" maintained strong playlist stickiness. It established regular rotation on alternative radio alongside legacy mainstays like The Killers, MGMT, and Phoenix. Keery had pulled off what Donald Glover achieved with Childish Gambino: establishing an uncompromised musical profile completely separated from his screen roles.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1: Did Joe Keery write "End of Beginning" by himself?

A1: Joe Keery wrote the lyrics and musical framework himself, co-writing and co-producing the finished track alongside his longtime musical partner and sound engineer Adam Thein at Sound Factory in Los Angeles.

Q2: Why did it take eighteen months for "End of Beginning" to become a hit?

A2: The song was originally released on September 16, 2022, as an album track on DECIDE with no promotional radio push. In early February 2024, TikTok users organically began utilizing its emotional bridge for videos about nostalgia, college departures, and hometown memories, igniting an algorithmic wave that drove millions of listeners to streaming services.

Q3: What band was Joe Keery in before launching his Djo project?

A3: Keery played guitar and sang backup vocals for the Chicago-based psychedelic rock band Post Animal. He amicably stepped away from regular touring in 2018 to ensure his surging Hollywood profile from Stranger Things would not overshadow his bandmates' music.

Q4: What is the exact meaning behind the Chicago lyrics in the chorus?

A4: The lyrics reflect Keery's sentimental longing for his formative early twenties in Chicago, where he studied acting at DePaul University and played in local DIY bands before booking Stranger Things. The song honors that distinct phase of youth while acknowledging he can never return to being that anonymous, younger version of himself.

The Artistic Horizon for Djo

With Stranger Things reaching its final curtain and Keery moving into the next chapter of his acting career, his musical standing stands entirely altered. Djo is no longer an eccentric indie side project buried underneath a fictional 1980s high school hero. By securing a billion-stream alternative anthem without sacrificing his master recordings or creative autonomy, Keery rewrote the playbook on modern musician-actor trajectories.

The trajectory of "End of Beginning" proves that genuine emotional resonance retains ultimate authority in the modern music ecosystem. A well-crafted pop melody, recorded with authentic instruments and personal stakes, can sit dormant indefinitely until listeners discover its truth. For Joe Keery, returning to Chicago is no longer about chasing a past chapter; it marks the arrival of a fully realized artist in his prime.