In her new single, titled “Found,” pop temptress Melissa B. establishes herself as an artist of the future through a combination of surreal songwriting, efficient beats and elegant harmonies that have gone mostly unmatched in the year 2019. With a forceful presence that rivals the physicality of the bassline in the background, her lead vocal slashes through the synthetic melodies at the top of the mix with surgical precision, and yet she never feels particularly over the top in her performance here. There are a lot of pop singers essentially trying to accomplish the same thing that this talented young woman is, but there are few – if any at all – that are showing off the kind of skillset that Melissa B. is in this latest sonic charmer.
URL: https://www.melissab.com/
“Found” is all about showcasing its silky vocal, and there’s no denying that every element of its instrumental fabric is designed around the artful cadence of Melissa B.’s verses. She carefully navigates through the thick bands of low-end texture and the airy percussive pattern circling her every word with ease, and although this is perhaps one of the more demanding compositions that she’s tried to record thus far in her career, she doesn’t come off as hesitant or unsure of herself in the least. Contrarily, I detect a lot of swagger in this performance, and while her attitude doesn’t devolve into downright arrogance, she exudes a level of confidence in this track that I would really like to see some of her less than erudite peers try to replicate in their own work.
I love the textural expressiveness of the bassline in this song, and personally I think that it makes “Found” even more evocative than it would have been as a straight vocal track. As critical to the construction of the narrative as any of the lyrics are on their own, the bass quivers in the chorus at the ebbing of the instrumental hook, much like a kindred spirit who has met its lover’s touch for the very first time. It’s provocative and subtly sensuous, but it isn’t so prominent in the master mix that we lose focus on what really drives this track more than anything else does – Melissa B. herself. The production value deserves to be lauded, but there’s no question that this composition didn’t need any bells and whistles to resonate with fans on multiple levels.
If what I’m hearing in “Found” is only a taste of what’s to come next for Melissa B., I cannot wait to see what she’s going to do in 2020. She’s got a ridiculous amount of potential that, despite her being in the limelight for a couple of years now, is still not being exploited to the degree that it possibly could, and with the right creative cultivation and an isolation from the toxic external influences that might otherwise destroy a promising young singer’s career, I haven’t any doubt in my mind as to whether or not she’s going to find a lot of success among mainstream American pop audiences and beyond.
Jodi Marxbury