Photo by Charlie Szur (@caffeine_cowboy), Edited by Rob Lucchesi
Break out your WalkMan, ladies and gents, your folks are going to wish they had this on cassette back in their day! Charles On TV’s latest single, “Another Reason Why”, locks us even deeper in the back of his turntable time machine. Sweet and mellow and with a groove so smooth, you’d mistake it for a classic if you heard it on the radio.
With an already budding discography, and hot off the September release of his debut EP “Truth & Lies”, Charles On TV clearly has something to prove with his new single. It’s poppy, it’s jazzy, it’s that perfect summer blend for whatever you’ve got going on in the hottest month of the year. It’s got everything- drums that feel like they were ripped straight out of the Anderson .Paak deep cuts, a deep, simple, differentiated piano run that Billy Joel could’ve written on Glass Houses, and a bass line that Earth, Wind & Fire would be jealous of- it’s the total package.
The NYC native first appeared out of what seemed to be thin air back in December, 2020, with his first hyper-blues-pop-jazz single “Love”, a queer love story narrating the events of the 25 year-old’s tale of sexual self-discovery. From there, we started to see the lead-in to his debut EP, with the release of his second single, “Strongman”, and the Truth & Lies lead single, “Golden Alligator”, where we got to see him start to really grow into his own style, both instrumentally and lyrically. His sound naturally draws you in, consistently steering clear of your expectations for the direction of the song- for example, the second track on the singer’s EP, “Don’t Pretend”, starts out as what sounds like another slow build ballad centered around a core melody to put the focus on the fills and the lyrics, similar to “And Be a Star”, the EP’s introductory track. Instead, “Don’t Pretend” turns into a sweet, guitar-synth electro-folk song full of nuance and soothing background vocals. The EP then transitions into “This Xmas (I Want You)”, once again totally subverting expectations.
On “Another Reason Why”, Charles On TV capitalizes on the strongest points of the Truth & Lies EP- the soft vocals and explosive hooks, the infectious world building, and most importantly, the thematic elements and personality built up over the journey from “Love” to Truth & Lies and all the way up to the latest single. Charles On TV has proved himself a genre-fluid powerhouse, and worth more than just a two minutes and 35 seconds chunk of your time.
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