Welcome all to ๐๐ผ๐ป๐ป๐ผ๐น๐น๐โ๐ ๐๐ผ๐ฟ๐ป๐ฒ๐ฟ, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of ๐๐๐ฌ ๐ผ๐ง๐ฉ๐๐จ๐ฉ ๐๐ฅ๐ค๐ฉ๐ก๐๐๐๐ฉ playlists.
๐๐ค๐ซ๐ ๐๐ฉ๐ค๐ง๐๐๐จ (๐๐๐๐ฉ. ๐๐ข๐๐ก๐ฎ ๐๐ง๐๐ฎ) – ๐๐๐ฃ๐ค ๐๐๐ก๐ก
Charles is only pretendingโฆ
Itโs been a while since I wrote about love here. Used to do it all the time. Writing, I mean. And itโs always tricky. Well actually, it wasnโt ALWAYS tricky. At the beginning it was quite easy, because it was new. But after a while, there is little more I can say on the matter. Admittedly, most of you will either not remember my earlier articles, or will not yet have joined the New Artist Spotlight community at the time they were published. Shall I just rehash one of my old ones, then? I mean, thatโs what everyone else does these days, right? The thing is, I donโt like doing that. I never do that. I never do that with anything. Newness is โlike my thangโ. The funny thing is, we do it in songs all the time; this love-ad-nauseam doohickey. Admittedly less so these days as I think young people have been too anxious to learn how to love. Probably far too much like hard work. Okay, so I wonโt concentrate on the very young ones (as if I ever did). Do we maybe just take love for granted? Itโs a big old thing, donโt ya know. Love, I mean. Weโve all heard the stories. Weโve all been through it. Itโs either beautiful and tragic. Or starts one way and ends the other. Actually, usually. โSheโs the oneโ – how many times have I told myself that?? We so desperately want THAT one to be THE one. We all want the happily ever after. Some genuinely get that. Lucky sods. But more often than not, it just ainโt the way. Bit of a bugger, if you ask me.
Smugly though, I am one of those lucky sods. I give you permission to loathe my guts. More than usual, I mean. I was unlucky followed by unlucky followed by – you guessed it – unlucky. And then a decade ago, a foreign ray of sunshine came to my door. Literally. Well, I mean not literally. There is only one sun so I donโt suppose it can ever be seen as foreign. But the girl of my dreams indeed came to my front door. And no, I didnโt buy her on the internet. โGirl of your dreams!! Only $99.99!!โ – no no. Don’t be absurd; I was BROKE! I couldnโt afford $100! I could tell you all about the entire storyโฆโฆ But I wonโt. Sorry, but I wonโt be splashing the details all over this Corner. Leave my private parts alone. Past, not parts. Anyway, the rest is history. Well, maybe not so much history as a continuation of all things good. An ever present past. You see, I donโt really think of my past as the past. I think of the time before I existed as the past. But anything I can actually remember is simply an earlier chapter. This way it still lives and breathes. I canโt simply file away my life in a large folder labelled โMemoriesโ. And even if I were to do that, I would still spend a lot of time looking back through it all, like old photo albums. So when I look back at failed relationships, do I wish to erase them from my memory? Do I wish for those pages to be torn neatly at the seam, and for them to instantly evaporate between my fingertips? Not really. You see, Iโm a little bit weird. Am I thankful that those bad episodes are not in this current chapter? Yes. Of course. But I like the fact that I have gone through all that junk. It somehow makes the “current now” rather more special, having endured the “previous now”. If ya catch my meaning. What I like about love is the emotion. What I like about LIFE is the emotion. Good or bad. Thatโs why sad books, films, plays and songs are so affecting, and why we love them. The ups and downs of life are what make it interesting. If it was all upbeat, positive, fun and funny, it might be lacking in a certain je ne sais quoi. Nah, thatโs lazy. It might be lacking the struggle. The good might not seem so good if all is good. Luckily though, love and life are rarely without struggle. So you shouldnโt have to put too much effort into making things worse in order to make them better. Moral of the story: try to make it work; bad things will happen; good times will come again, and those bad things will only make the good times seem even better. That phrase, “the only way is up”… Rubbish. Plenty of downtime.
There we go. Two paragraphs about absolutely nothing. Knew it wouldnโt be too hard. And now, to music. I have always wondered what happens when two artists decide to sing a duet about love. Obviously they sing, but I mean what happens in their minds? โEr, CC, this might be dangerousโฆ Are you about to potentially ruin a relationship?โ – no no. TWO relationships, with one article. Itโs called efficiency. Iโll step back a bit first. Films. Movies. That Hollywood kiss. Theyโre acting! Itโs not real. But that kiss was real. It happened. I always wondered how the actorsโ partners felt about that. I personally donโt think I could handle that. Especially knowing how long the actors spend together in the film studio throughout the productionโฆ So in the music studio, could it be seen as much the same concept? The act of pretending to love each other, very, very realistically? Okay, admittedly thereโs no ASMR smoochie-smooch all over the microphones (usually), thank the lord. So theyโre safe. But are they REALLYโฆ? When one sings properly, one wants to portray a certain emotion. Realistically. Singing is in a way the same as acting, in this regard. So a duet about love has to be believable. Please welcome the lovers who loved for 4 minutes and 4 seconds, Sano Hill and Emily Gray! And also, welcome to Connollyโs Corner; the filthy gossip rag you love to hate. Iโd like to point out that Love Stories is originally Sano Hillโs song, so he obviously made the first move. He, being Seรกn. Emily said yes – good start. Always a bad start if they say no – unless theyโre playing hard to get. So, are they a married couple? No. Are they a couple of any kind, then? No. So is this some sort of sordid affair that I shouldnโt be bringing out in the open? No. Well, not that I know of. Love Stories is like a scene in a film. It is fiction. It is to PORTRAY something. It is not live life with a hidden microphone, and they happened to break into song. This rarely happens. Usually because there is no hidden microphone. Randomly breaking into song is quite a common occurrence. Or perhaps thatโs just me.
So! Why am I so suspicious of their innocent distanceโฆ? Iโll tell you why. Because I so rarely hear duets as believable as this. I can only picture them staring into each otherโs eyes across the microphoneโฆ Did I say distance? Oh yes. One is Irish, the other is English (yet lives in Catalonia). Seรกn has yet to even glimpse this foreign sun. Ya know: Ireland and all that. So how am I to believe there is nothing between these two gentle folk? The answer is talent. The answer is expression. The answer is acting. Seรกn and Emily are professionals. They actually hate each other, hence the distance. Thatโs how good they are! No no, they do not hate each other. I couldnโt leave you thinking that. They are in fact good chums. โMaybe YOU should be a little more professional this time too, if only to show the duo a little courtesy and respectโฆ?โ Oh, fine then. But only if I get to lark about after the show. So, the music. Letโs start with the music. Eastern winds rush over the dunes, as I always wonder how they donโt get sand in their eyes. โProfessional!!โ – look, I chuckle my way out of anything professional. Let me be me. Itโs Eastern but in a Western light. The acoustic guitar digs in as the purple shredded fabric tails fly erratically to the wind. The percussion is thick and in full force. Seรกnโs shirt shows signs of wear and tear, but he doesnโt care. His right foot stomps repeatedly in the sand, despite my unfounded feeling that he is left-handed. One quick wipe of the brow and lick of the lower lip, and heโs ready to give this his all. He knows he only has 4 minutes to prove it to you. โIn the beginning there was fire, and it burned us throughโ. What an entrance!! It also gives Emily the cue to rise from her cajon. She was quite happy sitting there, tapping away, but her riposte was necessary. She felt the urge: โJust when we couldnโt get any higher, I fell in love with youโ. Sounds dreamy when written down, but backed with this music and sung with such passion and dynamics, it all feels to have taken a darker turn. The intense rays of the sunset have decided to pause their decline for these 4 minutes. Our Eastern winds continue as they do. Theyโre hell-bent on setting that mood. Gotta love the duduk (one of my absolute favourite instruments of all time). And it is at this moment that the massive drums enter. They are huge in feel, but also quite dead and close in terms of dryness. It ironically gives such live presence to the piece. I must say, I really do enjoy the contrast of words to music throughout the verses.
ZING! Went the strings of my heart (if you know the lyric). Itโs not often that strings feel like flying plates narrowly missing your ear and slightly skimming your hair. But in a good way (theyโre padded, donโt worry). This is (perhaps surprisingly) one of my favourite moments of the song. Itโs something about the portamenti (slides) in the note transitions. So totally Mantovani (big fan). Overly romantic and with too much passion. I love it when thereโs too much passion. And why does it hit me so muchโฆ? KEY CHANGE!!! Almost zero songs have key changes these days. This oneโs a particularly unusual one, but I wonโt bore you with it because if you know, you know; if you donโt, you couldnโt care less and your brain refuses to take it in. I saw you smile and nod. One of the problems with unusual key changes is that no matter how expertly the instruments handle the switch, the vocals can often be a little dumbfounded and therefore seem a tad awkward. Hesitation is not what one wants at the point of a strident key change. Thankfully, our professional twosome handles it as if it were not there at all. Effortless ease with every note. So thereโs that. The problem with changing key is that you usually have to change back again at some point. This point being the chorus. And this chorus is edged into place like a satisfying executive desk toy. You know, the ones where the marble JUST reaches the platform every single time. THIS is where Seรกn and Emily come together to rub shoulders. A great big satisfying chorus of love. I can hear their smiles. Can YOU?
No relationships were harmed in the making of THIS love story.
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