Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Tones And I, Sony Music, 2020.
Australian indie-pop sensation, Tones And I has released her first new music since the release of her debut EP, The Kids Are Coming (2019) which contained the worldwide hit, Dance Monkey.
It’s a hard job to back up after you’ve achieved such universal acclaim, but both these tracks are worthy successors.
Can’t Be Happy All The Time is a song about Tones’ rapid rise to stardom and dealing with the pressures associated with such a dramatic change in lifestyle.
The song’s slow, staccato tempo divides the track, placing the emphasis squarely on the lyric content.
When Tones releases the tension, letting the music flow, it’s only for fleeting moments before she reapplies the staccato straitjacket of pressure.
This clever technique reinforces the feelings of a tourniquet being tightened – I assume much like the stricture of expectation that she now feels as a result of her early success.
Bad Child is a fantastic track that opens with musical and vocal hints of Amy Winehouse.
In fact, the track is so uncannily similar in its musical structure and vocal inflections that it wouldn’t be out of place on one of Amy’s albums.
Tones says of the track, “I’ve always wanted to write a song in someone else’s shoes; writing from their perspective. Bad Child is the first time I’ve got to do that.”
These two songs are the initial offerings of a new group of songs to be progressively released throughout 2020 and, considering their quality, I can’t wait for the next instalments.
I’m particularly fond of Bad Child.
I must have played it six or seven times while writing this review.
It’s a great track.
2020 was shaping up to be a very big year for Tones And I.
She was booked into a massive world tour beginning in March that was to take in dates throughout Australia, the UK, throughout Europe, The USA and finish up on 2 August in Montreal, Canada.
Obviously, the world-wide shutdown due to COVID-19 has put a temporary halt to the tour, but it goes to show what an amazing impact she has had on the world music scene in such a short period of time.
