“Sunshine People” – Detroit Social Club

2 stars (out of 5)

0

detroitsocialclub-sunshinepeopleThis single “Sunshine People” sounds like it was recorded by applying the ultimate “wall of sound” philosophy;  turn everything up to 11 and hit it as hard as you can, even the vocals.  This is great if your name’s  Phil Spector (although 4 bass players is probably at least 3 too many), but here the result is just  messy.

Inside this lumbering heavyweight is a pretty good song struggling to be let out, and a bit more subtlety and space in the mix would allow all of the good elements in the song to shine through instead of fighting with the tribal chants and drums for a fair hearing. 

The distorted guitar and thunderous bass which start the song along with the chanted “na na na” refrain dominate the song almost to the exclusion of everything else until the brief breakdown to acoustic guitar and keyboard at about the halfway point,  which adds some contrast before building back up again to the sledgehammer drums and bass driving it on to the end.

With a bit more subtlety and a bit more use of dynamics (turning down to 9 for 2 seconds doesn’t count), this song could be a mainstream contender because the hooks and the melody are there if you make the effort to dig them out. A remix by someone with an ear for radio play would do this no harm at all.

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