Will Young: Echoes -review

This album was released last year, but I have to review this :-) Good pop albums are hard to find these days, so one should praise the albums which stand out above the rest. Will Youngs Echoes is one of them.

It wasn´t hard to predict that Will would release a dancealbum. After all, dancemusic is everywhere and almost every has-been or shouldnt-have-been is trying their wings in the dancemarket. But what lifts this up in pop heaven is the sheer intensity Will Young takes on 80´s synthpop. Richard X:s beautiful and lasting production makes this as listenable now as 20 or 40 years from now. Echoes is not based on trends or EDM genres which have only a minuscule effect in pop music history.

Will sings at a heart-breaking intensity about love, and yearning and the queer point of view is definitely there. For example I just want a lover is very George Michael and it has a whiff of gay desire. Another one of my favorites is Losing my self which relies heavily on italodisco. It´s a perfect pop song in many ways, its catchy (but doesnt have nonsense la-la-la or o-o-o parts), beat is there but not in your face and the melody is so full of feeling that you could dare to wish that Will would release more of these kind of songs.

But its not all dance, it has a couple of ballads and downtempos which heighten the experience of deep emotion. But all done with heavenly synthsounds which glues the whole album together.

In the era of easy listening and disposaple mp3-filth, Echoes has a breath of purity and integrity which is rare. Hard to remember any other album from recent years which could be so full of emotion, beautifully sung, great melodies and a feeling of an album and not a collection of songs.

I couldn´t give this anything less than

5/5


Will <3>





With great song comes a great video :-)