EP Review: Brooke Candy – Opulence
2 min read
Emerging rapper/singer Brooke Candy has reeled in the big guns for her new EP Opulence; the release features executive production and songwriting credits by music industry whiz Sia Furler, some production duties by Diplo on the title track, as well as various other songwriting collaborations besides herself. Over the last couple of years, Brooke has captured the attention of her audience through her visual and lyrical fierceness, particular attention was given to her viral hit Das Me. Could she be a force soon to be reckoned with?
Title track Opulence, along with its Stephen Klein directed video, lashes out at modern materialism and its impact on today’s society; names are dropped (Tiffany’s, Forbe’s List and Gucci to name a few), and the word opulence is defined as wealth, riches and affluence. As anti-materialistic as the song appears to be, Candy still managed to be picked up by Diesel for the 2014 spring accessories campaign; not to mention that the overall sound of the track is no different to the mainstream female singer/rapper material we hear anyway, perhaps with hesitant thanks to Queen of the genre Nicki Minaj. There is still a quality to the track that she managed to own, particularly her bark and her bite.
Pop Rock doesn’t really seem to make a different statement audibly, it follows the same basic formula as Opulence and is your typical sexualised, beat heavy pop track; it actually sounds like it would have been on the cutting room floor from a Rihanna album. The unoriginality continues with Bed Squeak, a collaboration between literal noises of bed squeaking and bits of music, topping it off with Nicki Minaj-esque vocals. Finally, Godzillionaire has the sole purpose of being the most repetitive track on the EP; we hear the made up word a ‘godzillian’ times and again is no different musically to what we’ve heard already.
There is no doubt that Brooke Candy has talent in her own right, but there just isn’t anything on her Opulence EP that stands out and says ‘Wow, nobody is doing this at the moment, how different’. There is more to come from the emerging artist, however, her debut album is in the works so perhaps there may be something with a little more substance that strays from the female singer/rapper stigma; by combatting materialism and actually practising anti-materialism would be a good start, and tapping into a persona that screams out ‘I am Brooke Candy. I am like nobody else, and nobody else is like me’. Sorry Brooke.
