Pop music is getting harder for critics to pigeonhole these days, and while the genre still holds some water to those who simply want something melodic to dance or just relate to, indie artists like Bruce Sudano are redefining what the style can, and should, sound like in this new age. Sudano’s new single, “Make the World Go Away” is an exercise in experimentation that steers away from popular trends while staying as true blue to the rich harmonies of contemporary pop as it can, and for what I look for in a sweet jam, it’s about as good as it gets in this market.
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There’s a really exotic edge to the harmonies here that helps to break up the tension in the beat, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it curbs the intensity of the drums at all. Actually, I think that the colorful stylization of the interplay between the vocal and the melody is what makes the underlying groove accessible to us whether we’re tuning in to the rhythm of the song or the rhyme. This is a multidimensional pop single, and truth be told, there isn’t one right or wrong way to experience its sonic wallop.
Catharsis is created through both percussive and vocal eruptions in the calculated lead in to the chorus, and it is only through this synchronicity between the two that there’s ever any relief from the grinding modulation that precedes the release of the hook. Bruce Sudano must have put some serious hours into ironing out all of the details himself in “Make the World Go Away,” and as unfortunate as it is for me to admit as a music journalist, that’s just not something most of his peers would be as inclined to do when making a new studio track nowadays.
I think it’s pretty obvious in this single that tonality means everything to Bruce Sudano, and I think that his dedication to make authentic melodies is something that a lot of his closest rivals on the major label side of the industry could stand to learn a lot from in 2023. he isn’t just concerned with making a track that stings cosmetically here; he wants us to feel something in the lyrical narrative that he sews into the groove, and whether it be through the harmonies or the churn of the drums, he’s going to stoke a reaction out of us in “Make the World Go Away” no matter what he has to do.
Coming into this review of the new Bruce Sudano song, I had some serious expectations, having really liked what I heard in his last single when it hit record stores, but I’m happy to say that he outdid himself in this most recent trip to the recording studio. Sudano is intent on raising the bar for both himself and the generation of pop musicians he’s looking to reign over in the underground hierarchy in “Make the World Go Away,” and that alone should make it required listening at the moment.
Loretta Kim