Lone Digger - Caravan Palace

Fantastically Entertaining and Addicting

First of all, don't look up the official video, it is very not "PG." But now, straight into the review. Caravan Palace falls into this fairly interesting sound using a number of differing techniques modern and classic. This combinations of swing and jazz raw instruments like saxophone, violin and trombones mixed with electronic samples and a more modern beat is called Electro Swing.

This isn't super new stuff though, it has been around since as early as the 1990's. I found this song a few months ago while listening to Miike Snow, and now this genre is open to me and I'm having a lot of fun with it. "Long Digger" caught my attention for a number of reasons, I was just blown away with the combination of styles and sounds. From the amazing pace that you can really only find in swing music to the EDM sound of voice changing and looping, I am still surprised every time listening to it how the combination works together.

The live instruments (which are played live), saxophone, violin and trombone, are extremely well preformed. The style is very jazz and swing authentic and well written. Not to criticize, but the drums are totally electronic, played on a drum pad in live concerts. This is not as much as a bad thing, it is amazing to see how we have come as a musical generation and we can see how well mixing genres can be. The singing and back up vocals sound great (but the live performances do show that this is a heavily "in house" produced song).

All in all, I hope you guys can enjoy this genre breaking song and dance along with it because it is almost impossible to not let the beat get to you.

Originality: 8

Instruments: 9

Vocals: 7

Longevity: 7

Red Music: 7.75

I've Got A Woman - Ray Charles

A Tune Worth Reworking Over and Over

Do you guys ever find yourselves rabbit holing into the internet finding all sorts of crazy information about one specific thing? While I was researching this song, I learned a lot, so let me give you a quick history lesson. From gospel tunes to Kanye West, this song has made quite the journey.

In 1954, "It Must Be Jesus" was a gospel song by the band The Southern Tones, a popular tune that everyone loved. Ray Charles and a few others re-worked it to be more upbeat song and sound about a woman. Elvis covered it and changed it up a little. The Beatles then covered Elvis' version years later. Jumping to the 21st century, Jamie Foxx was in a biographical movie called Ray and covered a number of Charles' other songs too in the film. Lastly, in this journey of the song, Kanye West took the song ans switched up the words a little with Jamie Foxx to create the popular song, "Gold Digger." 

Crazy right?! I love finding how music evolves, anyways, back to the review of Charles' version of "I've Got A Woman." This song is amazing for a few reasons, but the main reason is the man himself, Ray. Ray's voice is undeniably wonderful, rich and powerful. His control over his voice, authenticity and sincerity can be heard in in every word of the song, it is really what makes his version so perfect. The music in the background and saxophone solo is good and keep the fast tempo refreshing, but it does fall in the background as Ray sings, which isn't a terrible thing.

With all this said, I'm glad to have stumbled onto this song recently, and it is now an eternal part of my music collection.

Originality: 9

Instruments: 7

Vocals: 10

Longevity: 9

Red Score: 8.75