Finally! A decent collaboration between an EDM producer and Top 40 artists! Diplo and The Jonas Brothers are doing things up right. We’ll also cover another rising star, the state of Melbourne Bounce, and a few festival tracks. As always, we’ll be compiling a short recap of notable tracks that we didn’t have time to cover during the previous week. We hope you enjoy our selection and if you have any tracks you’d like to see here, please feel free to post your suggestions in the comments.
Diplo Presents: Thomas Wesley – Lonely (with Jonas Brothers)
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Over the past few recaps, I’ve bashed a few crossovers between Top 40 artists and EDM producers like Steve Aoki and Breathe Carolina while ignoring some of the others. I’m finally glad to say that we’ve caught a good one with Diplo and the Jonas Brothers. A lot of tabloids and gossip columns picked up that Diplo “ruined” Joe Jonas’ wedding by live-streaming it. At the time, I didn’t think much of it other than it plays well into Diplo’s troublemaker persona. Then a few days ago, Diplo hacked the Jonas Brothers official Instagram account to upload a series of six photos promoting the @diplo account and poking fun at the boy band. Turns out all of the shenanigans was just a brilliant campaign to promote this collaboration, “Lonely” where the video satirizes the whole wedding livestream situation and has the Jonas Brothers ghosting Diplo.
Fantastic marketing aside, the song itself isn’t half bad. It’s leagues above the last two we covered and appears to have a bit of actual heart and care put into it. “Lonely” is definitely on the short side sitting just above two minutes. The vocal melody for the verses is a bit basic for pop but it makes for a pleasant listening experience without becoming overly generic. A muted electric guitar is the central focus and plays into Diplo’s recent cowboy outfits that he’s been wearing everywhere. Overall, it feels like they took a holistic approach to this track and put a lot of thought into their marketing efforts. It’s refreshing to see all the threads converge like a short web-series. On top of that, having a decent track to deliver is the cherry on top of it all.
74/100
ANG – La Guitarra
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In many ways, “La Guitarra” is a refreshing track for remaining big room fans. It goes back to the long-form breakdowns and takes care to have two different breakdowns to give the track its atmosphere. The drop combines a few familiar elements included a lead taken from ANG & Saberz’s old track, “Good Love” (Or Maddix – “Keep It Jackin’”) and that signature percussion from Husman’s “Heroic.” One thing I constantly grapple with as a reviewer is nostalgia versus innovation, and I think what it comes down to is the amount of care put into a track. In the past, I have misconstrued a lack of care for being simply “generic” and have ended up criticizing the wrong demon. So I will start here by saying that “La Guitarra” plays into a certain nostalgia, but the attention to detail in the breakdowns elevates this above just another big room track. Of course I wish there had been more added to the second drop to finalize the track’s progression, but the overall package was a mostly enjoyable experience.
80/100
Tom Budin & Debris – Nothing Left To Say (feat. joegarratt)
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“Nothing Left To Say” is an interesting trip down memory lane for me as the drop calls all the way back to Tom Budin’s remix of “Satellites” by Qulinez in 2017 with its percussion and bass. The vibes are also similar to one of my favorite songs from Moksi entitled “Stranger” with the percussion from Keanu Silva. The original vocals from joegarratt are full of emotion especially right before the buildup and tackles some nuanced ideas with its lyrics. Debris and Tom paired those vocals perfectly with a dynamic, flute-sounding lead in the drop. The overall arrangement is very tight and flows well from section to section however I wish there was another eight measures of instrumentals in the drop before reintroducing the vocals in the extended version. In the end, these three have created a lovely track with high replay value for intimate venues and Spotify playlists.
82/100
Felix Jaehn & Mesto – Never Alone (feat. VCATION)
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I picked this song to talk about a certain trend when it comes to future house music aimed towards a more mainstream audience. “Nothing Left To Say” touched on it a bit with its only eight measures of standard “drop” before heading back into the vocals but here in “Never Alone” there is just eight bars of drop before taking out the percussion altogether and jumping right back into the break. We saw this before when Morgan Page teamed up with Vivid for “Fire and Gold.” As a DJ, I understand that it’s hard to keep crowds engaged for sixteen measures but eight just seems unusually short. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been conditioned to enjoy sixteen measure drops by all other house music, but considering house songs usually have an extended and radio version, I don’t understand why you would leave the “Extended” version with this abbreviated structure. Mesto is certainly accustom to this structure as his most popular streaming track, “Another Day” has a sixteen measure drop for the radio edit and a twenty-four measure one in the extended version.
Back to “Never Alone,” just looking at the math, only about 17% of the track is devoted to the drop with the rest focusing on the breakdowns and vocals. The vocals I find pretty unspectacular and would be hard-pressed to pick them out of a lineup. I see “Never Alone” as a failed experiment to find a new formula that might be more successful with a mainstream audience. There are better ways to blend traditional and mainstream EDM.
56/100
RetroVision – Take Off
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I’ll admit that I’ve been experiencing a bit of burnout when it comes to Retrovision and the thirteen other tracks and remixes he has put out in 2019. However, “Take Off” is an exceptional production. The first three quarters of the song is filled with detail, unexpected twists and turns, and an extremely meaningful sense of progression and flow. We start with some fairly standard future house vocal jobs before a soul vocal takes us into the land of trance before some harmonies come out of nowhere to elevate the track. The trance motifs return in the drop and are played out in a groovy house fashion. In the second breakdown, the vocal chops return but instead of reusing the first break, we get a beautifully ornamented festival break that would make Sick Individuals proud. Unfortunately, that’s about where the journey ends because the second drop takes a huge dip in energy as it doesn’t heighten the track in a meaningful way. This left me with a huge case of blueballs because of how well everything was going up until that point.
84/100
WYKO & Dirty Sound Boys – The Tribe
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While certainly not a new face in the scene, WYKO has definitely been experience a sharp rise lately with his release on Dharma and just winning the remix competition for Laidback Luke alongside Krexxton. His latest release, “The Tribe” is an excellent showcase of his sound design and pacing. I was not familiar with Dirty Sound Boys prior to this release, but after checking out their other two releases, it seems like this falls in line with the sound they’re aiming for as well. The track sits at just under three minutes which is refreshing in this day and age. Two proper and different breakdowns with the second featuring a nice melodic festival break. The drops are powerful of course and feature plenty WYKO switchups to keep the energy going. Keep your eye on these guys.
78/100
Joel Fletcher & Tom Clayton feat. Fozzey – Righteous
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I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m a longtime Melbourne Bounce fan and have been thoroughly enjoyed watching how Joel Fletcher pairs the signature percussion set with original vocals. This time, he and Tom Clayton have teamed up with Fozzey for “Righteous.” I’ll cut straight to the chase and say that Fozzey’s vocals are not as good as the ones from Sprado or Bianca or even the uncredited ones in “Bang” or “Rollin’” Basically, I just wanted to highlight this trend and hope that perhaps it’ll provide some gems later down the road, but “Righteous” on its own is relatively forgettable.
63/100
Unknown Brain & ThatBehavior – Take It (feat. Riell & J.O.Y)
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I’ve been very excited for this one to come out because it’s such a sexy track. When I listen to this, it makes me close my eyes and sway from side to side as the music takes over me. The back and forth between Riell and J.O.Y. is something we need more of in EDM songwriting. Having original vocals in a track instantly sets it apart from the pack, but having two? Basically in a league of its own in the current market. The harmonies in the second buildup is truly chilling and the drop that follows properly moves the track forward with its guitar solo. I wish they had gone a step further with that cathartic feeling for another eight measures rather than settling for a basic outro, but the journey was outstanding to say the least. Unknown Brain & That Behavior did incredible work and Future Generation has proven itself a force to be reckoned with in the pop sphere just as TNC did for festival music during its time.
86/100
jeonghyeon – In My Head
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Last week, we talked about how David Flix was setting himself up for success in this streaming-first landscape. This week, I want to highlight jeonghyeon who is doing the same with future house. Strange Fruits, Kernkraft, Vipmusic, Chill Trap, and Future Bass Records have all contributed to getting this Korean producer to almost 200k monthly listeners on Spotify. This latest release on Strange Fruits is serviceable, capitalizing on the future house meets progressive trend. I was pleasantly surprised to see two unique drops in this track. In terms of being memorable, I don’t think this one will withstand the test of time, but it’ll service your playlists just fine for the next few weeks. I’m sure we’ll be hearing back from jeonghyeon soon as he’s already released twelve tracks this year.
75/100
We hope you enjoyed our recap of selected songs from last week. If there is a song that you felt should have been on here, be sure to leave it in the comments below and we’ll do our best to give our take on it. Certain songs were not included because they will be covered in more detail in the following days so make sure you’re following our social media pages to see all of our latest posts!
This recap was provided by The QR Network which is a site for interviews with producers and DJs. Check out their interviews with Olly James, Todd Helder, Justin Mylo, Krimsonn, and Marauda.
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