Review of: Sit Still, Look Pretty by Daya

Daya is the name of an American singer and songwriter who released her first self-titled EP in September 2015. She has had two singles peak in the top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100 with Hide Away peaking at 23, and Sit Still, Look Pretty peaking at 28. She was also featured on a song not present on this new album with The Chainsmokers in early 2016 called Don't Let Me Down which peaked at 3 on The Hot 100. It is almost a good thing that particular track was not included on this album because it would probably steal the show.

While I do think there are some good moments on Daya's Sit Still, Look Pretty, they are largely overshadowed by issues in the production and mixing of this album that stops the album from clicking with me as well as it could. My first big problem with the production is that there is nothing organic or hugely interesting going on.This is mainly due to the real lack of melodic presence that these songs seem to have. The beats are so overpowering, and the melodies are nowhere to be seen on this album, and when they are there, they're nothing special. Legendary is probably the best example of this with that awful squeal of the synth line swamped to the bay of the mix.

Other than that, this album really fails to impress me all that much. Talk tries to add a bit more menace to the production but is only able to emphasise the awkwardness of the songs. Similar case with the song U12 with its slow, groan of a melody line that just sounds horrible over the beat.  I could say a similar thing about the synth line on the verses on Got The Feeling ruining an otherwise passable chorus, and the weak, flimsy synth loop that runs throughout Words. Also, there is a line on the latter song that did frustrate me. 'We don't have to say love 'cause the words only get in the way'. I am slightly unsure how Daya intends for her relationship to improve by not acknowledging the love she has for this guy. Slightly confusing.

At least I.C.Y.M.I is a song that I can appreciate. Mainly because I can sympathise with the frustration of having an ex who just won't just accept it's over and move on with their life. The same with Cool. The fact that she is speaking about a positive relationship is refreshing and likeable. If only the production matched the mood.

The hits Hide Away and Sit Still, Look Pretty are both songs that inspire very little in the way of thought. In the former's presence, we have a song where Daya asks 'where do the good boys go to hide away?' She goes on to make comments about how she is looking for a guy who is willing to give her some respect and status in the relationship. Seems like a fine idea on paper, but Daya proceeds to make some very odd generalisations about what boys want in their girls. The statements seem to prove that she is not looking hard enough for a guy that is prepared to treat her with respect, though in the song she does insist that she is 'looking high and low'. The title track on this album follows a similar path, but the framing and use of hyperbolic language throws me off the song massively. She describes herself as a queen, and then that she is going to rule the world. Even if you argue that 'the world' is a metaphor for the relationship, the fact that she is playing the commanding role with such force kind of makes me want to (if I was the boyfriend in this case) stay away.

There is one moment on this album that stands out from the crowd, though, and that's the track Back To Me. On this track, the clumsy production is stripped back in favour of a pure, delicate piano ballad that proves to me that Daya might be a pretty emotive singer. The backing choir does ruin that sense of isolation that the song needs in order to connect on a wider level, but other than that, I really enjoyed this song, probably the best on the album.

The album close with the semi-inspired self-empowerment track, We Are. I can applaud the efforts of trying to go out with a bang, and generally, I do like this song, but the album lacks the consistent quality (or any quality at all) to feel deserving of this payoff.

In conclusion, Daya's Sit Still, Look Pretty is not a particularly fun listen. The lack of great moments means I can't rate this album any higher than a strong 2 / 5. If there is one good thing that I can take away from this, it's that Daya does show some potential on a few songs here. Give her time to mature, a production team who can deliver some weight instumentally to support her, and we might see something good from Daya in the future.

Favourite Tracks: Back To Me, I.C.Y.M.I

Least Favourite Tracks: Talk, U12

Overall Rating: 2 / 5

Review of: Illuminate by Shawn Mendes

Shawn Mendes is a Canadian singer-songwriter who started gaining traction in 2013 when he started to post covers onto a six-second video sharing site called Vine. This resulted in him gaining a few hits in his home country of Canada with Life of the Party and Something Big in 2014. His worldwide breakthrough came in 2015 with his song Stitches which went platinum in twelve countries and topping the UK and Scottish Official Charts. He also collaborated with Fifth Harmony's Camila Cabello on I Know What You Did Last Summer and released it on a revisited version of his debut full-length album, Handwritten. Despite quite liking that latter song, I still had pretty low expectations going into his new album Illuminate. This is mainly because his lead single Treat You Better was grading, obnoxious pop at its worst. Did Shawn Mendes surprise me?

Well, no. Quite simply not. Illuminate is an example of an album that struggles to gain and maintain any serious momentum or anything interesting to keep my interest for twelve tracks. His delivery is not mature or old enough to make Treat You Better or Mercy even slightly convincing, the latter being saved by being one of the only places in the album where the album has any momentum courtesy of the backing choir, and the attitudes on display on Ruin or Treat You Better push this album close to pure awful for me.

Take the opener, Ruin for instance. A song where Mendes tells his girl that he is 'not trying to ruin her happiness', but he follows that statement a line later with ' but you know I'm the only one for ya'. He appears completely unwilling to put the situation in the girl's hand and allow her to make a decision. This attitude is certainly comparable to his attitude on Treat You Better where he attempts to insist that he is better for this girl than her current boyfriend, but gives very little in the way of evidence to back up his point. The fact that he describes himself as gentlemanly on this track further cements its position as the worst song here.

Three Empty Words isn't that much better, though. Mendes appears to think that not telling his girlfriend that he loves her is going to improve the relationship. If you are going to that sort of extreme to try and make something of your relationship, you might as well end it all. The hook on No Promises might be slightly more tolerable musically, but it still has some problems. Mendes again insists on making decisions without seemingly thinking them over as he says that he and his girl should not make promises because they are unlikely to keep them. He appears completely unprepared to take any risk or anything beyond the safest, least interesting relationship Mendes could have possibly brought up in his song.

Lost potential is littered all throughout this album. Honest is a great example. It could have been a decent song if Mendes had framed it properly. The song describes how Mendes feels he is unable to maintain a solid relationship with this girl. Sounds innocent enough on paper, but the framing says otherwise. The song implies a real lack of effort on Mendes' end to even try to understand what he needs to do to be able to supply the girl with what she needs. It screams of laziness.

On Don't Be A Fool Mendes and his writers make another mistake in framing and he ends his relationship with his girl even though he is still in love. However much it does say in the song that this is because he doesn't have time, it also doesn't demonstrate that Mendes has put any effort into trying to find time. If he really was in love, you'd think that he would at least put the smallest amount of effort into trying to find some time for his girl. Again, Laziness.

Patience might have a pleasant, steady instrumental, but like so much of this album, it's the subject matter that frustrates me. I understand Mendes' frustration on this track as he attempts to deal with an on one day, off the other kind of relationship, but instead of singing about how he is losing his patience, why not just sit and talk it out? Why not just express your feelings to the girl in question. That would be the more mature, sensical thing to do.

On Like This, Mendes eloquently describes his girl as 'not drop dead gorgeous'. I have no idea how I'm supposed to root for this guy at all. The closing track Understand is interrupted half way through with a spoken word monologue which does not serve any purpose at all and is just seemingly there to add to the five minute running time, but I can at least get behind the themes on this song Mendes discusses how he doesn't want fame to change who he is deep down. If the song didn't drag on for so long, he could have made something of that message. Also, if Mendes does 'really want to understand', you'd think he'd put in some more effort to communicate his issues with his girl. The Treat You Better like attitudes resurface on Bad Reputation, which for me is the point where this album just becomes pure awful. Mendes insists that he could be the one who can 'treat her like a lady'. If I was the girl in this case, I would start backing away slowly because at not one point on this album has Mendes given the smallest amount of evidence supporting his point. It's infuriating.

However, after everything I've said about this album, there are a few songs that did stick for me. Lights On is pretty cute with Mendes saying that he wants to love his girl with the lights on, as oppose to turning the lights out and not being able to properly see every inch of her. Pretty cute I suppose. Mercy is easily the best song on the album by playing a thicker instrumental over Mendes' voice and supporting it with a strong backing choir; I would argue it works very well. The backing vocals more than make up for Medes' lack of presence. I like the lyrics here too. Mendes seems prepared to do anything for his girl, and the punchier instrumentation sells the song: I really like this.

If only the instrumentation on the entirety of this album was up to this level. For a majority of this album, the production is minimalist and incredibly filmsy. On top of that, the guitars are weak and unable to pick up anything close to texture and presence in the mix. The worst example of instrumentation is probably on Ruin. The stomping percussion is so frustratingly slow,

In conclusion, stay away from this album. It's not good. I wouldn't even recommend this album to anyone looking for solid background music like this album is trying to be. Mainly because the attitudes are so infuriating, I can't help but get frustrated wherever I'm listening to it. For me, it's 1.5 / 5 and no recommendation. Avoid this album.

Favourite Tracks: Mercy

Least Favourite Tracks: Treat You Better, Bad Reputation, Ruin

Overall Rating: 1.5 / 5

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Review of: Young as the Morning Old as the Sea by Passenger

Let's face it. I'll always be slightly biased when talking about Passenger. Mainly because I can think of very few artists who were responsible for evolving my music tastes quite like Passenger. For those of you who don't know, Passenger is a five piece fronted by Mike Rosenberg. Rosenberg has released music under this name since his first album Wicked Man's Rest, which to this day I consider his best work until the band broke up in 2009 and Rosenberg took the name on for himself where he continued to release music. He made his break into the mainstream with the 2012 smash hit Let Her Go which topped charts across Europe and the critically acclaimed album, All The Little Lights. An album that I continue to love and adore to this day; if you haven't heard it, go listen to it, it's amazing. Since the release of that album, Passenger has had a fan base that Mike had never had before. He released his next full-length album in 2014 titled Whispers, another great album, and then the sequel Whispers II in 2015. However much I did feel like Passenger's material has been going down hill a bit, especially with the release of Whispers II, I was still excited when he announced his 2016 album, Young as the Morning Old as the Sea. So, how was it? Did it live up to my through the roof expectations?

Well, this album certainly doesn't have the immediate hit song on it like All The Little Lights did, and it's nowhere near as good as Wicked Man's Rest which holds on to the title of best Passenger album for now, but there is still a warm feel of indie folk-pop that feels like it's coming from a good place. This has always been Passenger's main selling point for me. His honest vocal tone kind of makes you at least sympathise with him, at least to some extent. His vocals (and the backing vocalists particularly) continue to sound great on this new album, but I can't help but think that something deeper than that is missing from this album. The quality seems to have dipped from stunning, to fine enough, occasionally forgettable, but always pleasant folk-pop. It's difficult to pin down quite why this has happened, but I can take a bit of a guess. First of all, there is a certain lack of music variation throughout this album. I understand that Passenger is a folk-pop band, so obviously there is folk-pop on this album, but there is so little change in the instrumentation from song to song that it can get frustrating. In other words, a lot of these songs sound very similar. But I suppose the sound is welcoming and matched with Mike's vocals lines that sit at very similar ranges throughout this album, it does work. Mike's voice sounds like it was made perfectly for this brand of folk flavoured pop music. It's quite amazing really. It's great to hear an album this refreshing every once in a while.

Passenger has always been an incredible storyteller for me like on my favourite song from All The Little Lights, The Wrong Direction, where he tells the story of someone who is finding it difficult to find a woman with detail and interesting metaphors, and while there is some of that on this album, like on Beautiful Birds which features British musician Birdy. The song tells the story of two lovers, or birds as they are described as in the song, with eventually the female in the relationship asking too much of the male, and the relationship falling apart. I like the detail here. This brings up a whole other point to do with the lyrics and themes on this album, because if I had to give one word to describe Young as the Morning Old as the Sea by Passenger, it would be, reflection. Take When We Were Young for instance. A song where Passenger discusses what it was like being young, and how time has flown by. A message that seems tinged with sadness which I really appreciate. It shines the song in a significantly more interesting light.

Sometimes the stories on this album can get vague and repetitive. While When We Were Young has detail and complexity behind its story, songs like the opener Everything have stories behind them that don't connect quite as much. On Everything, the message is 'if you've got love, you've got everything' to quote the song directly. However much the simple framing does compliment that message, the lack of any real content beyond it kind of sets it back for me. Anywhere is another example. It opens with a pretty promising guitar melody, that might have worked if Passenger didn't just spend the entire song discussing that he'll always be with his girl no matter what. The potential is present in these melodies, but the themes don't always provide a solid enough baseline for the lyrical content in these songs to keep the interesting for the length of the songs.

I like the soothing vibe Somebody's Love has got going on, and while I will always prefer the single version of this track - mainly because it's almost four minutes long, and the album version is nearly five and a half - it still stands out as one of the better songs on this album. I love how the lyrics intertwine with each other and how they all seem to link and connect on the second verse. It continues the pleasant feel that this album has going on.

However, I could probably do without the dry, shallow echo of the guitar on Young as the Morning Old as the Sea, but once they fade into something more acoustic later on in the track they become more interesting. The song does drag a bit, though. Beautiful Birds probably has the most enjoyable instrumentation on this album by playing to a more delicate feel pretty amazingly. The framing is spot on here. I would have loved it if Birdy was allowed to be more expressive on this track, and not just seemingly being here for the sake of framing the song as a duet. Maybe if she had a verse explaining the situation from here opinion.

Points must be given for the way that the end of Beautiful Birds fades into The Long Road. It is a transition that I love. The Long Road is a song about travel and has a feeling of moving on and new beginnings over the shimmering instrumentation. While this song is about moving on away from what you know, Home runs that idea even further as it discusses the safety of home and how Mike doesn't have the comfort of a place like that. It is slightly irritating that the song goes on for six minutes, and half of that time is spent repeating the same verse four times over, but that verse is so well crafted talking about the difficulty of not having a home. A great song, but not the beat on the album.

Fools Gold is, without a doubt, the best song here, and it is almost entirely to do with the complex framing. I may have misinterpreted here, but the song seems to be about wanting more out of a relationship partner and comparing all the things Passenger has asked out of his partner that wasn't going to enhance the relationship in any way to fools gold. I find that metaphor so touching.

In conclusion, I'm struggling to come up with an awful lot of criticism for this album. My biggest criticism of this album is that I would have appreciated a bit more string texture in the mix that made some of his earlier work particularly interesting musically. Even the more boring songs on this album like the song If I Go that just doesn't end up doing a lot for me still have the captivating vocals and backing vocals to give it that soothing feel that fills up the entirety of this album. Overall, it's 4 / 5 and a firm recommendation. If you're a fan of Passenger and haven't heard this yet, it's essential. If not, I'd still recommend this album as warm background music for working to, or even just to relax to. I am happy to say, Passenger has once again delivered.

Favourite songs: Fools Gold

Least Favourite Songs: If I Go

Overall Rating: 4 / 5

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