They never imagined that they would conquer the tastes of millions of people around the world, and even less so before they turned thirty. The Australian Vance Joy and the American Sammy Rae Bowers have starred in two huge success stories, propelled by their particular assimilation of popular music styles of the twentieth century from a rabidly contemporary sensibility.
The huge success of a song, "Riptide" (2013), put the Australian James Gabriel Keogh (that's his real name) on the international pop map: two billion plays on Spotify adorn that single, early sample of a catchy folk pop with huge commercial projection, a language in which the singer and songwriter from Melbourne has been successfully doctored, because there are more than two million physical albums that he has also sold worldwide. A barbarity. Operating in similar coordinates to other folk singers like Ed Sheeran, Kaleo or Hozier, Vance Joy has released three studio albums: "Dream Your Life Away" (2014), "Nation Of Two" (2018) and "In Our Own Sweet Time" (2022). And a recent live, "Live Sidney At The Opera House" (2023), which is the most reliable track to orient us to what this fervent admirer of Savage Garden, Ben Folds Five or Metallica can do on Noches del Botánico .
The overflowing vitality that emanates from any Sammy Rae & The Friends concert has, at last, translation to the grooves of an album with new material in this 2024, endorsed by the fantastic single "Coming Home Song". Everything they embodied in the torrential live "The If It All Goes South Tour (Live)" (2023) and in the EP "The Good Life" (2018), finally has discographic continuity. It was of justice. It was expected. Because the proposal led by the American Samantha Rae Bowers (thirty years old) is one of the best imaginable fusions between the jubilation of gospel and funk, the narrative power of folk rock and the elegance of the best jazz. No wonder Paul Simon, Bob Dylan or the E Street Band are cited among his influences. It is the best popular music of the 20th century condensing its qualities in a way that sounds as if it was invented two days ago. An essential live performance.
