Some thoughts on “Escape to night radio”, one of several recent digital singles from Craveit.
Release Date: February 16th 2022
Serial Number: N/A
Format: Digital
Tracklist
1. Escape to night radio
Stream: Here
When it comes to music I’m probably quite as adventurous as some of you young folk out there are these days but having said that, I do like it when something comes along that I don’t expect. Whether that be an interesting gimmick or what have you or perhaps the use of a genre, instrument, etc in a way that you don’t really hear too often if at all. That’s getting harder and harder to find these days with the advent of the internet and complete shredding of any rules of conventional music theory that has gone on over the last decade or so but sometimes it still happens and it’s great when it does.
Craveit are an Idol that are doing something along these lines, taking the genre of Swing of all things and attempting to adapt it into something vaguely J-Pop and Idol orientated. I’ve written about them a couple of times previously so maybe you’ve heard this all from me before but I really have been quite impressed with how the group have taken a quite old style of music and given it a breath of fresh air while presenting it in ways that a modern audience can hopefully appreciate a bit more than they otherwise might have.
The group have been releasing several digital singles so far in 2022 so I figured I’d pick one of them to write about here so as not to overload you guys. Generally speaking Swing is involved in every track the group is putting out, from just straight up interpretations of the genre to the more dynamic, Electronica infused modern takes that are clearly trying to appeal to audiences of today. I picked “Escape to night radio” to talk about today because one it has a pretty great title and two I thought there was some pretty interesting things going on to talk about. Which is what I’m about to do right now as a matter of fact.
Of all of the recent Craveit digital singles that I could have picked to write about, I think I probably went with the most Swing leaning one in “Escape to night radio” but I kinda like it the most because it is so different to what you’d normally hear from an Idol group. It has that very throwback Jazz style that was popular in the 1930s and 1940s while modernizing it just enough to not feel too out of place in the current Pop landscape. You still get all of the brass sections and time signatures that make the genre what it is but the vocals on the more contemporary side and have a bit more of an Idol vibe to them. On paper it probably doesn’t sound it should work as well as it does but there’s a lot of interest in this genre in the last decade or so there’s definitely a market out there for it and it certainly can be pulled off rather effectively, as heard here and in quite a few other places outside of the J-Pop realm.
While this style of music is unlikely to be to everyone’s tastes, and a bit of a leap from the sort of thing that I usually write about here, there’s no denying that what Craveit do is rather unique and they do it really well. Very much worth the listen just for that alone and who knows, you might just discover an appreciation for a new genre that you might otherwise never have listened to. That’s the great thing about music for me personally.
I believe this track and several of the others I’ve mentioned were recently released on a physical EP, so if you find yourself really liking what you’ve heard here then you can pick this track and more up in that format if that appeals to you. It’s always a fun time when new Craveit music comes along and I hope to hear more new material sooner rather than later if it’s all going to be as good as what the group have been putting out so far.
