Ok, so I got this in my inbox forwarded from my editor:
“I've been brewing up stuff in my home studio, and with some remote collaboration from friends. I think I'm making my best stuff. I've released 5 songs in the last 6 months, more on the way. I'm sharing a new album as I make it.”
Well as a writer I’d rather hear it when it’s all done and I’m not just being the cynical asshole that I am, it’s for a reason which I’ll get into in a minute. The first track I checked out is titled “…” and for some reason even if this is the greatest song ever recorded in human history that’s just pretentious, there’s a reason people ignored that stupid symbol Prince tried to change his name to and just kept calling him Prince. So when referring to this track I’ll just say the P.T. for pretentious title. P.T. starts and it takes a moment to get into the song as it builds one element at a time and for me, it sounds like a garageband construction but then the song actually starts and you realize, nope this is like someone who knows what they are doing. A crowd cheers, the narrator says “hold on” and he launches into a rhyming slow rap and for musical idiots you can liken it to Shawn Mullins and that terrible “Lullaby” song but for me it hits more of Hot Chip vibe like their song “Shake A Fist” where the song just breaks and the lead singer has a conversation. It’s also reminiscent of new rap stuff by guys like Lil Dicky.
The song did it’s job, it took me out of a bad mood, changed my mind on my initial perceptions. But here’s why I said what I said earlier about creating a full album in the traditional way. The next track in chronological order is “Maybe So…” and for me this track is so just basic and normal sounding that it disappointed me a little. Where was the cool samples and modern vibe that differentiated this from plain jangly guitar indie stuff. The horn section helps but I’m not sure enough as Murray sings a melody you’ve heard a million times. So I had to know is he more track P.T. or “Maybe So…”. To my delight he is a really good mix of what makes both songs good. His next single “Indifferent Languages” is probably the best one. The singles after that “Milkweed” and “Do You Ever Feel Like” are good mixes of both styles as well.
For me, and this might just be and old person type gripe, I’d rather the artist spend the time, the 6 months or so culling together the EP or album. Have them look back and decide then what tracks work together and which ones don’t. For me I think “Indifferent Languages” works as “The Single” but the others make good tracks for an EP. The song we started with “P.T.” could potentially lead off an album. I think the hindsight helps the artist be more focused instead of the modern age where every artist is so impulsive for fear of their Spotify account not looking active.
In the end, I like Michael Murray but I feel like if you listen to all these singles you’ll hear an artist trying to figure out what they do best or an artist in a transitional phase between styles trying to incorporate maybe the old way of doing things with a newer way. This is on display for people to witness through his Spotify page which can have it’s pros and cons. The plus is it made me interested enough to see where it goes.
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- Sam Lowry