New York City's Baby Dayliner is one guy, Ethan Marunas, who attended Manhattan's LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (aka The "Fame" High School). Although he does give high school classmate and Giraffe's guitarist, Damien Paris some credit on a few tracks and also thanks Adrian Grenier (HBO's Entourage) for laying down the drums on "Silent Places", his "FAME" education must have played a role in his ability to provide all of his own vocals, violins, basses, guitars, drums, synths, sequencing, sampling, producing and engineering for this sophomore release, Critics Pass Away.
This album really took me by surprise. I don't think I would have ever found myself in the rap-laced, electro-pop section of my local record store picking this album off the shelf. I just stumbled upon "At Least" on this site's, Weekly Stream X, and my interest was immediately peaked. Not quite sure what genre this should be in, funk?,hip-hop?,R&B?,pop?,soul?,techno?, and I was not really sure if it was serious or not. I had no idea whether to laugh, or just get up and seriously shake-it. I did both, all the way to the record store to purchase the full lp, and every song is just as strong as that first taste.
The songs on the surface seem quite silly and unsophisticated, but undeniable catchy and toe-tapping. You are helpless in trying to keep these songs out of your head, and subsequent listens prove these songs to be refreshingly romantic, wonderfully upbeat, incredibly earnest, and one-ton-o-fun.
The next time I find my self staring at an empty dance floor at a party where I am driving the jams, I would no doubt reach for Critic's Pass Away. "At Least", "Critics Pass Away", "Whodunit?", or "Silent Places" are all excellent choices. Hard to have excuses with these tunes spinning; "Don't let your bashfulness take control of your need to move, so, Simon Sez, shake it!" (from track 11 "Simon Sez").
But this album is just as great for romancin' as it is for dancin'. So the next time you fellas find yourself using someone else's song to serenade a fine lady from her second story window, and you want to mix it up from your tried-and-true "I wanna get next to you" by Rose Royce, give track 4, "The Way You Look Tonight" or track 12, "Nature's Clause" a try. I wager the results will be favorable. "Put on your favorite heels, and sexy finery, you're ever my erotic, but elegantly"..how the hell can you lose?
