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Ryal drops Lonely Love single
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On March 13, female pop artist Jacque Ryal debuted a new single, ‘Lonely Love.’ The fierce single is a follow-up to her well-received single ‘City Lives,’ which was released last year. First, though, let’s learn a bit about Ryal in order to give some context to her new song.
Ryal describes herself as being an artist who is “unafraid to evolve creatively and committed to her expanding musical sensibilities.” Her song ‘City Lives’ received significant attention with some critics drawing comparisons to the Pretenders, Blondie, and “everything disco.” I’d be hesitant to agree with this comparison, however, because the Pretenders and Blondie were new wave punk acts. They didn’t align with disco at all. In any case, both acts do boast powerful frontwomen which may be the reason for comparing them to Ryal.
Before delving straight into ‘Lonely Love,’ to be released on March 30, it made sense to check out ‘City Lives’ since they’re so directly correlated. ‘City Lives’ was quite the production – fully equip with a fairly impressive independently filmed music video. Typically, well-written lyrics are often lost on disco-style music. ‘City Lives’ has strong lyrics and it’s a remarkably catchy song.
‘Lonely Love’ feels more subsided and timid that ‘City Lives.’ The production is more simplistic, dancing about with lightly thudding percussion, cascading synthesizers, and reverberating vocals. The song may not be as memorable as its predecessor, likely due to ‘Lonely Love’ feeling somewhat void of creative expression. The song sounds like a stereotypical disco-pop record, pulling out the stops on every cliché method of production.
When a contemporary artist decides to tackle the retro-disco sound that Ryal is endeavoring to, they have to add some flare into the mix. Most recently, the Black Keys went down a very similar road with 2014’s ‘Turn Blue.’ The album was essentially a garage rocker tangled up with disco production. It worked, though, because the Black Keys took chances and mixed the two radically different styles together. ‘Turn Blue’ brandished an aura of experimental rock that made retro-disco interesting again.
When you bog yourself down with a disco production that doesn’t adventure into any new territory, you just end up sounding like an echo of the past. You don’t remind audiences that you’re a new, vivacious artist, but rather, that they haven’t seen ‘Saturday Night Fever’ in a while. That’s what ‘Lonely Love’ does. It’s well done, well recorded, and Ryal performs powerfully. With that said, Ryal can’t just feed off of nostalgia. There has to be something new and creative in her sound, and as of now, she’s lacking it.
Brett Stewart
