As an active music listener, many artists I’ve heard have produced albums in which all the songs are the same, or somewhat similar, in style or taste. However, I’ve recently discovered a new, tremendously talented artist whose first album consists of songs with different musical genres and, if heard, will attract a wide variety of listeners.
Ty McLaughlin is a 22-year old musician from Hicksville, NY whose material I discovered on the music website ReverbNation. After listening to a few of his songs on the site, I was very impressed with Ty’s instrumentation, especially his guitar work, and vocals. Also, each song sounded very different in terms of sound and genre. As a result, when I heard Ty was going to release his first album, I was interested and excited to hear what Ty would deliver.
The album, simply titled Ty McLaughlin, consists of 10 tracks, and was released on August 26, 2016. After listening to this album, I can honestly say that Ty McLaughlin has talent that many mainstream artists don’t have.
The album starts off with an aggressive rock opener, “Prism” which begins with a guitar riff reminiscent to the famous riff on George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone”. Ty provides raw vocals and guitar and an extensive amount of keyboards.
The next track, "Vixen", is not only a complete departure from “Prism”, but also my favorite song on the album. It’s a pop masterpiece that would be perfect for mainstream pop radio. This bittersweet love song consists of soft vocals and beautiful acoustic guitar, strings, and percussion.
As I was I listening to this album, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time because each track was drastically different in vocals and style. For example, "Morning Coffee" is a country ballad, "Never Have I Ever" is an aggressive blues, garage rock song that’s a fun listen, and “She’s My Girl” is an ambitious, doo-wop song with some percussion included. In his Facebook video, “My Biggest Accomplishment: An In Depth of My New Album.", Ty says Billy Joel, Jimi Hendrix, Zac Brown, John Mayer, Howlin’ Wolf, The Four Seasons, and several other artists influenced him to write and perform the songs.
The album closes with my second favorite track, the 8-minute “Birds of a Feather”, which is an atmospheric, Pink Floyd-esque rock epic. Ty’s stellar, David Gilmour-influenced guitar sound and the voice snippets used at the start and end of the track make “Birds of a Feather” very uplifting. According to his Facebook video, Ty wrote this song in honor of the men and women in the U.S. Air Force.
This record is fantastic. I applaud Ty for his skills as a songwriter and instrumentalist. I also praise him for ambitiously crafting each song to make it very unique in sound and style, resulting in each song standing on its own from the rest of the album and appealing to a different audience. Ty is currently still working on music as a solo artist and as a member of his new band Cue the Pilot. Whether it’s a solo effort or material with his new band, I look forward to hearing what Ty delivers next.
Works Cited:
McLaughlin, Ty. "My Biggest Accomplishment: An In
Depth of My New Album." Facebook, 3 Oct. 2016. Web. 18 May 2017. <https://www.facebook.com/ty.mclaughlin.1/videos/vb.1500398586/10210608023745703/?type=3&theater>.
"Ty McLaughlin | Blues from Hicksville, NY."
ReverbNation. eMinor Incorporated, n.d. Web. 18 May 2017.
<https://www.reverbnation.com/tymclaughlin>.
No comments:
Post a Comment