Tag: music box

Music Monday – Volume Ninety Five

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1) All Saints – Fear

Gorgeous, eerie electro-ballad from All Saints’ comeback album. Distant twinkling pianos, tribal percussion and infinitely reverberating vocals all result in a very special, substantial ballad.

 

2) All Saints – Who Hurt Who

Another gorgeous ballad from the band’s comeback album, although this time it is a pure and raw piano ballad.

 

3) All Saints – Red Flag

R&B/Hip Hop elements all evolve into a quirky alt-R&B track with a brilliant chorus where giggling synthesisers and thunderous percussion soar.

 

4) Justin Timberlake – Can’t Stop The Feeling

Utterly brilliant comeback single from JT. Piano chords and finger clicks evolve into a fantastically catchy disco-pop Summer smash. One of the best songs of 2016 so far.

 

5) Before You Exit – When I’m Gone

Moody and brooding with stuttering percussion, pitch-moderated glitchy vocal samples and crashing synths, resulting in an utterly brilliant Pop track.

 

6) The 1975 – A Change of Heart

Gentle 808 percussion, jittery synthesisers and monotone vocals result in this brilliantly frank yet emotional 80’s-influenced pop track. Clearly influenced by the likes of The Blue Nile and Madonna’s ‘Crazy For You’, it’s just brilliant, particularly during the breakdown on which Matt Healy sings She said “I’ve been so worried ’bout you lately, you look s**t and you smell a bit”. The intertextuality/references to the band’s previous works ‘Robbers’ and ‘The City’ are also incredibly clever.

 

7) Liss – Good Enough

Danish teenage band Liss are quickly taking the world by storm, largely propelled in the UK by being championed by Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac. Their music straddles various genres such as synthpop, alt-R&B and neo-soul, often with a very care-free tone. This track is no exception.

 

8) MUNA – Loudspeaker

Catchy Pop-Rock track with energising guitar riffs and a brilliant chorus.

 

9) Niki and The Dove – You Want The Sun

Great track with a very retro-vibe.

10) Mic Lowry – Saving All My Love

Smooth and soulful acoustic track by UK vocal group Mic Lowry. Perfect breezy harmonies carry this lovely track.

Music Monday – Volume Ninety Two

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1) Kendrick Lamar – These Walls

The american rapper throws a curveball on this neo-soul influenced hip hop track. Breezy, light and reflective, it’s a brilliant track and one of Lamar’s best.

2) Mark Pritchard – Beautiful People

Gentle electronic track which drifts effortlessly throughout its six minute duration.

3) Zayn – SHe

Brilliant alt-R&B track with moody guitar riffs, an awesomely catchy chorus and polished production. It’s carried by buoyant beats and Zayn’s syrupy vocals. One of his best.

4) Digital Farm Animals – Wanna Know

Buoyant house track with a brilliantly catchy hook.

5) White Denim – Take It Easy

Soulful and relaxed track with a retro vibe. Utilising little more than organic percussion, bright keys, jazzy riffs, funky bass lines and beautiful falsetto vocals, it’s a lovely track.

6) ROMANS – Silence (ALUNA GEORGE Edit)

Chipmunk-esque pitch-moderated vocal samples, hip hop beats and reverberating soulful vocals carry this brilliant and powerful track.

7) SBTRKT, D.RAM, Mabel – I FEEL YOUR PAIN

Elusive producer SBTRKT teams up with vocalists D.RAM and Mabel on this jittery neo-soul track with elements of alternative R&B.

8) Nick Jonas & Tove Lo – Close

Sultry and moody R&B track which utilises steel pans and thunderous percussion. It’s a powerful track driven by Mattman and Robin’s tight production.

9) Barq – Gentle Kind of Lies

Quirky and brilliant Alternative R&B track with furious guitar riffs, funky bass lines and rock-influenced percussion. Jess Kav’s soulful vocals shine throughout.

10) James Morrison – Need you Tonight

Catchy pop track with funky guitar riffs, skipping bass lines and bright piano chords. Drawing upon disco and soul elements, it’s one of his best songs of his career.

Zayn – Mind of Mine Album Review

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The past year has been something of a roller-coaster for Zayn Malik. A year ago, he broke millions of fans’ hearts when he announced he would be leaving One Direction to pursue the life of a ‘normal 22 year old’. It later emerged that he had been secretly recording solo material and his animosity towards his boyband days was soon made crystal clear in numerous interviews in which he took multiple swipes at the band and their music.  A shock split with fiancée Perrie Edwards soon followed in addition to multiple venomous and highly publicised Twitter spats. Still, these potential career suicide-moments have been long forgotten since lead single ‘PILLOWTALK‘ rocketed in to the top of the charts of over a dozen countries.

As expected, ‘Mind of Mine’ is a world away from Malik’s One Direction days. Gone is the pop-punk and stadium-pop and in is alternative R&B, catchy dance-pop and elements of Soul. It’s slick, polished, consistent and mature with reverberating vocal samples, hip-hop beats and effect-drenched vocals scattered throughout. It’s a natural transition into R&B music similarly to Justin Timberlake’s début ‘Justified’ fourteen years ago.

‘Mind of Mine’ excels from start to finish with barely a blip. Overall, it possesses a moody and brooding tone with sexualized lyrics and a deeply-textured sound, resulting in a cohesive catalogue of material on which Malik revels in his newly-found freedom. Lead single ‘PILLOWTALK’ remains a stand-out track with its its thunderous percussion, reverberating synths, wailing guitars and Zayn’s sweeping vocals. The rest of the album follows suit with the sullen yet dreamy ‘dRuNk‘ featuring Malik’s multi-layered harmonies boasting ‘I’ve been drunk all summer’ over unsettled R&B percussion, summery synthesisers and weeping electric guitars. ‘rEaR vIeW‘ is similarly a sulky progressive R&B track with sparse production and a Timbaland-like chorus. Then there’s the beautifully haunting ‘iT’s YoU‘ – a gentle downtempo ballad on which Zayn’s stunning falsetto soars over jittering synths, a droning organ, hip-hop beats and crunching piano chords.

Just when things need shaking up a bit, the Beatle-esque piano chords of ‘fOoL fOr YoU‘ arrive. It’s a pleasant piano ballad on which Malik’s vocals really glisten and are relatively free of the over-production the rest of the album is laden with. The track mirrors The Beatles in both song-writing and production and it punctuates the album nicely.

Malik also refreshingly incorporates his cultural heritage into the album in the form of haunting interludes. The opening title-track features soaring Qawwali-influenced melodies over piano chords and clonking synthesiser arpeggios. Similarly, one of the album’s unexpected highlights is ‘fLoWer‘, a gorgeous acoustic interlude influenced by Malik’s upbringing as a British Pakistani Muslim. He executes his voice in Urdu, his father’s native language and warbles over eerie synthesisers and gentle acoustic guitars. It’s an innovative and utterly unique inclusion on an R&B album which works perfectly.

The dance-pop moments also work well, implemented best on ‘sHe‘ with its brilliantly catchy hook, slick production and buoyant production. It is miles away from the stadium pop-rock One Direction produced and is a steer in the right direction (pun not intended), reminiscent of some of Justin Bieber’s best moments on ‘Purpose’. Then there’s the soulful ‘tRuTh’, a track reminiscent of 70’s Soul with giggling synthesisers, a retro-guitar sound and distorted production. Featuring a brilliantly sunny chorus with sugary falsettos, it’s one of the album’s understated highlights.

Malik always had the advantage of having the strongest voice in One Direction and he exhibits his syrupy vocals perfectly on the album. His vocals are sturdy and powerful throughout, whilst his falsetto is his real gift, fluttering delicately over meticulously programmed instrumentals.

A bold and compelling album which validates Zayn’s transition into a credible recording artist.

Rating: 5/5.
Highlights: ‘PILLOWTALK’, ‘dRuNk’, ‘iT’s YoU’, ‘sHe’, ‘fLoWer’, ‘tRuTh’

‘Mind of Mine’ is available now on RCA Records.