Michigan
Sam Brenner
Sam Brenner is a brand new artist out of Seattle WA with only one release on his Spotify artist profile. The song, as he puts it, is born out of the millennial generation's sense of overwhelming stress and chaos where everything seems to be out of our control. Michigan provides a place where you can go back and feel at home and comfortable again.
Well, Michigan certainly sounds comfortable. It's a classic singer-songwriter song, where the personal experience plays the lead role. The song sounds hardly processed: the guitars, the bass, the drums, the piano and even the vocals are all very low intensity. They give you that laid-back feel that you might be looking for in a good singer-songwriter song.
The arrangement is good and everything is well performed. If there is any pitch correction on the vocals (which I doubt), it's subtle enough that it goes unnoticed. There is a roominess in the chorus that makes the song feel a bit like it was recorded in the 80's, which is a very soft and familiar feel.
Sam makes good use of silence, changes in the instrumentation and other common techniques to keep the song interesting throughout. Where the vast majority of singer-songwriter songs tend to get a little boring after about a minute, Sam Brenner keeps piquing your interest with a new section that is ever so slightly different from the one before.
While writing this review, I found myself listening to the song several times in a row and it keeps its catchiness. Now if that isn't the mark of a great song, I don't know what is.
You can find this song (along with other great songs and artists) on our Editor's Picks playlist.
