Okay so let’s talk about the iTunes free single of the week. It is often some sort of new artist who is just getting out into the world with their debut single or EP. On many occasions,the free single on iTunes is a great song. A few years ago, I discovered the amazing band Neon Trees by downloading their hit “Animal” when it was free on iTunes. Once, the free music video was “If You Believe” by Musiq Soulchild featuring Mary J. Blige. “If You Believe” is one of the greatest R&B songs I have ever heard and I’ve always been a little confused as to how it didn’t get on the radio.
Unfortunately, this week’s iTunes single is a bit of a mess. The song is “That’s Your Boyfriend” by Chris Price. According to iTunes, Chris actually makes his songs using “an iPhone, a 4 track app, and the phone’s mic”. That might not matter if this song was actually good.
Not only is the content of the song trite and cliché, Chris’ voice is incredibly whiny and it’s really distracting. Maybe it’s the tinny quality of an iPhone’s sound, but Chris’voice sounds super thin and flat. He’s got no soul to his voice and the chorus suffers because of it. I feel a bit pretentious for saying this, but I was recently in a musical and our musical director would often chide me for straining to hit high notes instead of letting them come naturally from my head voice. It sounds like that’s what Chris is doing here and it’s a little painful.
The music itself is wholly uninteresting. The percussion beat is just a simple repetitive beat that doesn’t change at all. I didn’t hear one tempo change throughout the entire song which gave me the feeling that there was no heart in this song. I think the one thing that’s impressive is that Chris did this all on his iPhone and it isn’t an abomination. With a few adjustments and a little soul, this song could get more than the 2 star rating it’s got on iTunes.