![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernjournal\/files\/2018\/05\/James-Bay_2.jpg\")
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Zo<\/span>\u00eb<\/span> Strickland | Editor-in-Chief<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s been three years since singer-songwriter James Bay released his debut album, and I\u2019ve been anticipating his second since I finished listening to the first. \u201cElectric Light\u201d<\/span> is good, but it\u2019s nothing special. In his second album, Bay seems like he\u2019s trying to reinvent his sound, but does so in such a miniscule way that the changes just seem like slightly overproduced missteps. While the album almost succeeds in showing a different side to the artist\u2019s music, an overall lack of continuity is its downfall.<\/span><\/p>\n When it comes to music, I love a good connecting storyline \u2014 and Bay\u2019s sophomore release seemed like it was going to deliver. \u201cElectric Light,\u201d in a way similar to \u201cCamp\u201d by Childish Gambino, uses interludes of dialogue to introduce the listener to the story that the album is trying to tell.<\/span><\/p>\n The first track, aptly named \u201cIntro,\u201d consists of nearly a minute of dialogue between Bay and a woman who\u2019s playing the role of his significant other. The conversation comes back halfway through the album with \u201cInterlude,\u201d another minute-long track. While this framework acts as the set-up for a musical story, the album itself fails to follow through. I was expecting the last track to sum up the record in a similar conversational way, but it ended on a bittersweet musical note that housed Kodaline-levels of sadness. Though the attempted storyline seemed like it was aiming for somewhere great, it failed to get there.<\/span><\/p>\n The first single released and fourth tune on the album, \u201cWild Love,\u201d is destined to be one of the songs of the summer. \u201cWild Love\u201d relies heavily on autotune, nearly to the point of sounding like Bleachers. However, the majority of the song remains low-energy and squanders the pop potential it appears to be aiming for. It isn\u2019t until the track is almost over that the sound drops into a danceable beat.<\/span><\/p>\n Bay\u2019s debut album, \u201cChaos and the Calm,\u201d was released in 2015 and was a solid record <\/span>\u2014<\/span> his powerful vocals and intensely romantic lyrics resulted in three Grammy nominations. While \u201cElectric Light\u201d still houses the same strong sound that was displayed in \u201cChaos,\u201d the at-times-overproduced quality of the songs took away from how much I enjoyed the album as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n While I dislike Bay\u2019s overall sound reinvention, I do have to commend him on the powerhouse that is \u201cStand Up.\u201d The song begins with layered vocals, but quickly turns into a softer, choral interlude, eventually building up to a climax of boisterous percussion and violin, ultimately winding down to a calm finish that borders on lackluster.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJust for Tonight\u201d is the song that\u2019s most reminiscent of the artist\u2019s previous releases; the tune feels like it\u2019s reaching into Bay\u2019s singer-songwriter roots, but ultimately winds up relying too heavily on choral voices.<\/span><\/p>\n Though I\u2019ll probably stick to listening to his first album, it seems like \u201cElectric Light\u201d is Bay\u2019s way of coming into his own sound. The album plays more with autotune, voice layering and different genres. However, the failed continuity of the record makes it seem like Bay was throwing pasta at a wall and hoping it would stick<\/span> \u2014<\/span> if the organization was better, I think the reinvention would have been more successful. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Contact the author at journaleditor@wou.edu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Photo courtesy of: republicrecords.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zo\u00eb Strickland | Editor-in-Chief It\u2019s been three years since singer-songwriter James Bay released his debut album, and I\u2019ve been anticipating his second since I finished listening to the first. \u201cElectric Light\u201d is good, but it\u2019s nothing special. In his second album, Bay seems like he\u2019s trying to reinvent his sound, but does so in such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}