{"id":1061315,"date":"2017-10-19T09:06:50","date_gmt":"2017-10-19T13:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/?p=1061315"},"modified":"2017-10-19T09:20:32","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T13:20:32","slug":"sonny-apollo-adventures-in-paradise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/2017\/10\/19\/sonny-apollo-adventures-in-paradise\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonny Apollo: ‘Adventures In Paradise’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"It\u2019s just so odd to write music rooted in electronic instruments and have it turn out sloppy. Imagine if The XX weren\u2019t Elliott School attendees and just decided to throw some bleeps and bops on top of some bass and electric guitars without any real musical sense. The result would be deflating, frustrating and most of all, a hard listen. You would want so desperately to buy into it yet you couldn\u2019t force interest in something that felt so incomplete.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s the problem plaguing Sonny Apollo\u2019s \u201cAdventures In Paradise\u201d EP (to note: Sonny Apollo is the stage name of Joshua Diggs, who grew up in Frederick). At a crisp 21 minutes and 43 seconds, it\u2019s so easy to want to like these six songs, but because there\u2019s something missing in the music\u2019s execution, the set amounts to a bit of a letdown. He wants to be soulful, he wants to be poppy, he wants to provocative, he wants to be Interesting (with a capital I). Yet what he doesn\u2019t understand is that trying to be too many things at once simply makes you look like you\u2019re trying too hard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And still, there are things to value. \u201cScream\u201d retrofits \u201880s pop soul in admirable ways, borrowing just as much from Talking Heads as it does David Bowie as it does Prince. An electric guitar wins points for trying to funk things up between verses but then the bass guitar struggles to line up with the electronic groove. It\u2019s such a fixable misstep that one can only conclude that the Frederick native wasn\u2019t willing to put in the required attention to detail to make the song work. Conceptually, it\u2019s a fine piece of art. When it comes to execution, however, the questions begin to mount.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ditto for EP-ender \u201cRings of Saturn.\u201d Perhaps the most memorable track here, Apollo centers a good chunk of the vocals around gospel ethos, which is a treat, considering how it lends the song a valuable dash of vintage soul. Plus, let\u2019s be fair: this guy doesn\u2019t have a bad voice. He often stretches it to places it doesn\u2019t need to go, but when he wants to, his smooth R&B vocals can elevate a song in delicious ways \u2014 and this is to say nothing of his solid falsetto. Still, he can\u2019t seem to craft an adequate rhythm track to save his life.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Maybe that\u2019s why something like \u201cHigh\u201d works in the ways it does, even if it is uniquely milquetoast. Written for the European dance clubs that made Cher relevant in the \u201890s, it\u2019s almost too simple, unapologetically bland and never meant to be heard anywhere but a place that has strobe lights. That said, don\u2019t sleep on its peak, which goes down when Apollo kind of\/sort of goes for an insane high note and kind of\/sort of halfway gets there. R&B fans might skip it, but it does suggest the singer has an admirable level of versatility that can only gain him more followers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Another moment that could garner him more supporters is \u201cZoo,\u201d which features some killer saxophone, tasteful atmospheric keyboard parts and the same live tribal drums that appear on \u201cRings Of Saturn.\u201d Even better is the use of the choir that backs Apollo as he hits a particularly sketchy vocal moment less than halfway into the track. Topping things off is the funk guitar that returns with more stability and better placement than it had on \u201cScream.\u201d All-around, it might just be the EP\u2019s best track.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Not the EP\u2019s best track? Opener \u201cSuicide,\u201d which embodies all the problems Sonny Apollo faces. Clearly not one to shy away from the dramatic, these songs struggle to paint the artist in the earnest light through which he so obviously wants listeners to view him. In some ways, his chanting of the song\u2019s title feels on the verge of parody and that\u2019s never good. Sure, the synths are a fine lush backdrop, but lyrically, the singer comes across as someone who needs to hone his craft. If he wants to be taken seriously by others, he needs to quit taking himself so seriously.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And while that might sound like a forgivable problem, it\u2019s actually at the core of why \u201cAdventures In Paradise\u201d doesn\u2019t resonate. There\u2019s a lot of talent here \u2014 and some even better ideas to boot \u2014 but the easiest thing to see through in all forms of R&B is inauthenticity and unfortunately, Sonny Apollo has trouble with that. At the end of the day, this set adds up to one song that chants the word \u201csuicide\u201d ad nauseam and five others that are so explicitly sexual, you begin to wonder when \u2014 or if \u2014 any intellectual depth will appear.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Such is why \u201csloppy\u201d isn\u2019t just the word to describe the music here; it\u2019s also the word for Sonny Apollo as a lyricist. \u201cTonight, I\u2019m going to go home with a brand new toy,\u201d he asserts on \u201cHigh.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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How about a book?<\/p>\n

** 2 STARS OUT OF 4 **<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s just so odd to write music rooted in electronic instruments and have it turn out sloppy. Imagine if The XX weren\u2019t Elliott School attendees and just decided to throw…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1061316,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1061315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1061315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1061315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1061316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1061315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1061315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnpsites.net\/playlist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1061315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}