SAM MACDONALD
Video Games
Cambridge, United Kingdom
‘Video Games’ flashes bright colours through a CRT, capturing the sounds and feelings of that old arcade roar, couple that with new wave pop vocals and songwriting vibes and ‘Video Games’ simply has to be a new single from pop producer up-and-comer Sam Macdonald. The instrumental is crazy. It's bright and swish, sporting a sub-bass slung around its waist like a fanny pack full of tokens. The beat is hard and full, cropping the sounds of synth and transposed video game effects into bite-sized nuggets of inspiration, the clean vocals cut shapes in the technicolour rug above. It's a mash of sounds and textures and it comes together to create something new and exciting in the pop-production niche. Sam Macdonald’s use of silence and multiple crescendos elevate the sound above the competition.
The song starts with the vocals and sub-bass, beginning the divide. How to portray the vocals on this track I imagine was the topic of many a heated debate, inward or otherwise. They sit, unedited and without any filters, amongst waves of rich synth and pads that are anything but organic. This clash makes the song for me. The vocals are never lost in the static, you can always track the decisive melody as it bounces between verse and chorus.
Sam Macdonald’s ‘Video Games’ is an excellent synth-pop first impression if you are just discovering this international star-to-be. - FREDDIE MCKEE