{"id":19110,"date":"2020-07-16T05:30:54","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T09:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19110"},"modified":"2023-12-06T07:18:47","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T12:18:47","slug":"album-review-cupids-carnival-color-blind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/07\/16\/album-review-cupids-carnival-color-blind\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Cupid&#8217;s Carnival &#8212; Color-blind"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-19111\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cupids_carnival.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"348\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cupids_carnival.jpg 350w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cupids_carnival-300x298.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/cupids_carnival-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>When it comes to certain substrains of powerpop (itself a subgenre), being derivative is a feature, not a bug. Do you sound like the Beatles, Badfinger, Raspberries? Success! And quite honestly, although the powerpop market is comparatively small, there\u2019s a cottage industry for this kind of thing. So while the whole idea might put off a slice of the potential audience, the approach has its adherents.<\/p>\n<p>And \u2013 when it\u2019s executed skillfully \u2013 I\u2019m one of those fans. Cupid\u2019s Carnival does the whole Beatles-influenced thing, and they do it quite well. \u201cWorking All Day\u201d evokes the \u201865 Fab Four, and \u201cYesterday\u2019s Gone\u201d hits the late \u201866 target. But Roland Skilton sounds quite a bit like John Lennon*, and the harmonies are spot-on.<\/p>\n<p>Despite song titles such as \u201cShine On\u201d and \u201cBaby Blue,\u201d this group \u2013 seemingly from the UK, but they don\u2019t tell us much about themselves beyond their names \u2013 Cupid\u2019s Carnival doesn\u2019t draw from Badfinger for influence. It\u2019s all Beatles all the time. But to their credit, the group filters those influences through its own personality, so the result doesn\u2019t come off as slavishly imitative.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, for listeners who stick around (and they should), one of the strongest tunes on the album is the aforementioned &#8220;Baby Blue.&#8221; The sweet, midtempo ballad is the least derivative track on the album, and one of the best as well.<\/p>\n<p>If one can get past the Beatleisms, it\u2019s nigh on impossible to fault this music. It\u2019s exceedingly well-crafted, superbly catchy and will bring a smile to the lips of most anyone who hears it. For what it is, the musical approach of Cupid\u2019s Carnival has rarely been done better than what you\u2019ll hear on <i>Color-blind<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>* Spend some quality time with this album and Skilton&#8217;s voice beings to take on a quality closer to Liam Gallagher. &#8220;Looking for Rainbows&#8221; would fit seamlessly on <em>(What&#8217;s the Story) Morning Glory?<\/em>, and that&#8217;s meant as a compliment. The direction that song takes toward its end suggests that Skilton and his band mates are aware of the similarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to certain substrains of powerpop (itself a subgenre), being derivative is a feature, not a bug. Do you sound like the Beatles, Badfinger, Raspberries? Success! And quite [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19111,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,51,62,65],"tags":[4246],"class_list":["post-19110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-pop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-cupids-carnival","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19110"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26561,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19110\/revisions\/26561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}