Year of the Album — #042 Sunday Lane – “Bring Me Sunshine EP” (2010, Independent)
“You can be careful and I’ll be the reckless one,” Sunday Lane sings on “Reckless One,” the closing number on her independently released debut EP Bring Me Sunshine. “I’ll get my heart broke, but someday I’ll find love.” Her vocals, sounding hard and brittle, of broken hearts and love lost, belie the forceful façade she portrays on the outside. It’s a raw, beautiful way to wrap up her recorded introduction to the world.
This EP showcases Lane’s Colbie Caillat meets Ingrid Michaelson sound in a solid way; these are pop songs at their core which shimmer because she smartly imbues the individual songs with flashes of her own individual personality. Her voice has a frequent tremble, a sense of vulnerability which accents these songs of hope, love and the intangible elements of love which we’ve all experienced. “I’ve forgotten how long it takes to make a bad thing good,” she sings on “How Long It Takes.” But I can assure you it won’t take long for this album to dig its way into your head.
This is piano driven pop which manages to rise above the fray, and she’s earned her fans on the road, building a career from the ground up, the way few do anymore in the world of pop music. If the quality of the songs on this EP are a sign of what she’s capable of producing, here’s hoping Sunday Lane gets to make a full album that showcases her songwriting talents to a wider audience.
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Her cover-mashup of “Baby” by Justin Bieber and “Bad Romance” by Lady Gaga is below. I think you’ll agree her voice raises those two songs to a new level, showcasing just how much she can do with just a few twists of a note:
Why not just give it to the Be Sharps? Oh wait ...
The Grammy nominations for “Best New Artist” are:
Justin Bieber
Drake
Florence & The Machine
Mumford & Sons
Esperanza Spaulding
And the winner is … who the fuck is Esperanza Spaulding?
Okay, seriously. I know the Grammys don’t mean jack these days, and NARAS wouldn’t be itself if they didn’t screw up at least one big award. But I think Bob Lefsetz summed it up with one line: “This is what eviscerates the credibility of NARAS. Is it a mainstream clusterfuck or an insider circle jerk?”
Indeed.
You change the rules to make sure Drake can still be nominated. You add in Florence + The Machine and Mumford & Sons — and Mumford has actually sold more than 750,000 copies of their debut, despite supposedly not having amarketable sound.
Then you nominate “Leave it to Bieber” to keep the teen set interested, and the best they can think of is to give the award to a jazz bassist and singer who has sold maybe 5,000 copies of her albums if she’s lucky. Oh, wait, it’s a Herbie Hancock sized conspiracy to help her have next week’s #1 album when thousands of drooling TV viewing morons rush out to buy what the Grammys’ told them insiders really are listening to.
Esperanza Spaulding is Best New Artist? Please.
Why not just give it to the Be Sharps? Oh wait ...
The Grammy nominations for “Best New Artist” are:
Justin Bieber
Drake
Florence & The Machine
Mumford & Sons
Esperanza Spaulding
And the winner is … who the fuck is Esperanza Spaulding?
Okay, seriously. I know the Grammys don’t mean jack these days, and NARAS wouldn’t be itself if they didn’t screw up at least one big award. But I think Bob Lefsetz summed it up with one line: “This is what eviscerates the credibility of NARAS. Is it a mainstream clusterfuck or an insider circle jerk?”
Indeed.
You change the rules to make sure Drake can still be nominated. You add in Florence + The Machine and Mumford & Sons — and Mumford has actually sold more than 750,000 copies of their debut, despite supposedly not having amarketable sound.
Then you nominate “Leave it to Bieber” to keep the teen set interested, and the best they can think of is to give the award to a jazz bassist and singer who has sold maybe 5,000 copies of her albums if she’s lucky. Oh, wait, it’s a Herbie Hancock sized conspiracy to help her have next week’s #1 album when thousands of drooling TV viewing morons rush out to buy what the Grammys’ told them insiders really are listening to.
Puhleeeze … It’s Jethro Tull in the metal category all over again. I’ll let Homer Simpson lead us out:
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February 14, 2011 | Categories: Commentary | Tags: Best New Artist, Bob Lefsetz, Drake, Esperanza Spaulding, Florence + The Machine, Grammy, Herbie Hancock, Homer Simpson, Jethro Tull, Justin Bieber, Mumford & Sons, NARAS | 2 Comments »