![]() “We listened to old music and surrounded ourselves in old places. “We set it up so that every performance and every take felt true to that time,” he explains. To get the aesthetic just right, Sanchez and collaborators entered a self-imposed time warp. The result is an eclectic album that doubles as a sonic time machine to a completely different era. “There’s a lot of songs in there that go back and forth to highlight different parts of his career,” he says. “When it came time to make a record, it just felt like a natural vein to start pushing on and pressing into.” Sanchez’s dizzyingly plotted debut also includes songs from The Troubadour’s stint in a band (“Shake,” “Send My Heart with a Kiss,” “I Need You Most of All”) and later solo career (“Be More,” “Doesn’t Do Me Any Good,” “High”). He returned to the retro well for 2023’s “Evangeline”-the introduction of the record’s heroine-and an idea took hold. “It was born out of a love for that music.” It’s about who are as a person.” In some ways, “Until I Found You” worked because, as a timeless track that avoids any kind of modern trend, it stood out like a sore thumb on TikTok. “If you make great music and have a timeless mindset, and you really care about songwriting and sharing a piece of your heart with the world… I think the brilliance of artistry beyond having just one good song on TikTok. While TikTok played a role in Sanchez’s rapid ascent, he points out that “great music breaks new artists” instead of any one platform. ![]() “If you make great music and have a timeless mindset, and you really care about songwriting and sharing a piece of your heart with the world… I think the brilliance of artistry goes beyond having just one good song on TikTok.” Along the way, it managed to go triple platinum and amass over a billion Spotify streams. ![]() The 2021 single proved to be a sleeper hit, crossing over from TikTok and eventually climbing all the way to #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2022. ![]() The first piece of the puzzle that eventually became Angel Face was the dreamy ballad “Until I Found You,” which was inspired by Sanchez’s love for artists like Roy Orbison, The Platters, and Elvis Presley. The feathery, sweet piano at the end-that’s me on the floor, dead, bleeding out as Evangeline holds me in her arms.” “I knock out all three, but he sinks a bullet in my chest. “In this scene, the mob boss’s goons rush the stage,” he explains of The Troubadour’s (i.e. The spaghetti Western–evoking “Death of the Troubadour” quite literally captures our hero’s final stand. “The Troubadour begs Evangeline to respond to that question on ‘Be More.’ It’s about longing and deep desperation.” “What’s more than ‘I love you?’ What’s more than ‘I need you?’” he ponders aloud. For instance, recent single “Be More” allows the crooner to explore the inadequacy of certain words of affection. Not only that, but the elaborate framework allows Sanchez to craft songs about matters of the heart-his favorite topic-from a multitude of angles. “It becomes all about the record and the music. “It makes it so much more interesting for me because it’s less about me and more about characters and a story,” he says. But that distance is exactly what appeals to Sanchez. “I love the drama and excitement of it all,” Sanchez raves.Ĭoncept albums are heading for extinction due to the domination of haphazardly curated playlists and the fact that a narrative requires the artist to take a step back. The plot was inspired by Marty Robbins’ 1959 classic “El Paso,” a so-called “gunfighter ballad” about a cowboy shooting a fella for flirting with his girl. “The album is set from 1958 through 1964,” Sanchez explains, “and it tells the love story of The Troubadour and Evangeline.” The latter femme fatale was formerly entangled with a mob boss, who isn’t too happy about her moving on, and things get bloody. The 20-year-old’s obsession with mid-20th century music shapes Angel Face, a wildly ambitious concept album that guides the listener through a twisty tale of love, deceit, bad decisions, and, ultimately, murder. ![]() Given his affinity for all things vintage-from the sweet crooning of the ’50s to the freedom and fashion of the swinging ’60s-it’s only fitting that Stephen Sanchez’s debut album is a throwback both in sound and format. ![]()
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