In the crowded world of pop, indie-pop, singer-songwriters and chart bound music, you have to make your songs stand out. You don’t have to go as far as hopping genres, going off on tangents or leaping small buildings…sonically speaking, but you have to make sure that your song offers the audience something that it isn’t currently getting from the wave of other potential popsters and ubiquitous strummers doing the rounds.
And that is what is always great about Charlotte Grayson‘s music. Although it pretty much stays within the realms of accessible, mainstream pop…and why not…there is always a neat sonic trick or clever device at its core that makes her songs feel new, infectious and necessary to the point of addiction.
Friends does that by running on a smart and unpredictable groove, one that swaggers and struts below the silky melodies that run along above it. And then you get to Charlotte’s vocals, a blend of wide-eyed innocence and worldly wisdom, a mercurial vocal blend that she is really making her own.
Smart, accessible pop with just enough ethereality and grace to make it both commercially viable and charmingly cultish. It works for me.
