Song of the Week: "Skate"

Songs of the weeks on the playlists on the blog

"Skate"

Silk Sonic

from An Evening with Silk Sonic

2021

I've always kind of disliked/tolerated Bruno Mars for being a very talented pastiche with no original ideas. I've always thought of Anderson .Paak as a family-friendly, low-rent Kendrick Lamar. But when they get together and call themselves Silk Sonic? For some reason, this is really appealing to me.

Of course, the music they create is not an original idea either, because Bruno Mars doesn't do original. He does old music for a new generation. He does it well, admittedly, and he possibly has never done it better than he does in An Evening with Silk Sonic. This is some string-drenched '70s Philly soul shit, and it's pretty great.

It leads me to believe that the vast majority of pop music is all about branding. Were this song called "'Skate' by Bruno Mars (featuring Anderson .Paak)" (or "'Skate' by Anderson .Paak (featuring Bruno Mars)), then there's no way I would've even bothered. But by labeling themselves as "Silk Sonic," one might be inclined to think of this as a fresh direction for these artists, even if it's really not fresh for anyone.

An example of something similar (though completely ignoring scale) is when Paul McCartney wanted to do some rebranding when he wanted to push the Beatles even farther into the psychedelic ether—suppose the Beatles were called by a different name, say, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band? Would that make a difference? That was the original idea, anyway, before they stuck with the label "the Beatles."

And I don't even know if Bruno Mars or Anderson .Paak even give a fuck about any of this. It's probable that they just called themselves Silk Sonic because it's less unwieldy than "Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak." The result is the same—this shit is certifiably cool. Not new, not bold, and ultimately not even significant (the album is too breezy and short for that), but definitely cool. For the first time ever, these artists have made something retro and cool. I'm glad the name change convinced me to give it a try, even if the convincing was at first subconscious.