I Wanted to Love An Evening with Silk Sonic. I’m Just Not That Into It.
Thoughts on Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak’s immaculately disposable soul suite
I like An Evening with Silk Sonic. The Bruno Mars/Anderson .Paak collab is one of the best-produced R&B albums of the year; a spirited bacchanal of vintage soul sounds. I spun it three times on a recent road trip and thoroughly enjoyed it.
I’m also profoundly disappointed.
My inaugural journey with the year’s most anticipated project felt much like devouring a high-end fast food dinner after a day-long fast. It went down quickly and easily. It tasted delicious doing so. It was over before I knew it, and I was left feeling full, but not nourished.
When the collaboration was announced back in March, accompanied by the release of the transcendent single, “Leave the Door Open,” my anticipation went through the roof.
The multi-talented and mega-versatile Mars is arguably our most exciting pop artist, and .Paak’s earthy earnestness and idiosyncratic charisma have made him a star in search of a proper orbit since the mid-2010s. I hoped the combination of the former’s polished sheen with the raw soul swagger of the latter could provide the much needed B12 shot to kick start an R&B genre that has been languishing in the malaise of pre-set drum kits, stagnant arrangements, and insipid talk-singing for the better part of the 21st Century.
An Evening with Silk Sonic doesn’t so much restore the heart and soul of vintage R&B to the modern landscape as campily caricature its stylistic hallmarks, albeit with dynamic aplomb. The album’s title proves fitting, as its contents feel like a Vegas-style review, romping through the touchstones of urban music from the ’70s and ’80s, tongue firmly in cheek.
In hindsight, “Leave the Door Open,” as refreshing as it was, tipped the band’s hand regarding the direction of the album. The background harmonies (“sip, sip”, “drip, drip”) are pure kitsch, rendered with a knowing wink and nod. It works due to the clear reverence the two infinitely likable front men show for the source material, and the sheer fun they’re having while doing it.
Thanks to the song’s arrangement and soaring pre-chorus, it conveys an earnest romanticism in spite of itself. The concept of literally and figuratively “leaving the door open” for love is straight out of the ’70s soul playbook, in which the sensual and spiritual often converge in timeless odes to the heart. It was that ethereal romanticism I expected the album to expound upon.
Instead, it seems content to continue frolicking above the surface. Take “After Last Night,” a meticulously produced ballad that seduces the speakers atop slinky synths and a hip-thrusting bassline from Thundercat. Mars’ opening lines (“Wishing on a shooting star, say a prayer for me/And hope it comes true”) hint at an ascension into the celestial bliss of the psychedelic soul with which the album periodically plays footsy. Before it can fully levitate, it crashes clumsily into the R&B cliches of 2021, with .Paak meandering into a stream of consciousness paean to “that gushy gushy good.” The sonics are, indeed, silky enough that it’s easy to tune out the overwrought and underwritten verses and get lost in the groove. In a truly great soul ballad, you shouldn’t have to.
Musically, the boys deliver back-to-back burners with “Smokin’ Out the Window” and “Put On a Smile.” Both broken-hearted ballads are easily among 2021’s best R&B offerings, but that’s a Kirk Franklin height bar to clear. Stacked beside the ’70s quiet storm burners against which they beg comparison, both crumble. The affected swagger and grandiosity of “Smokin’ Out the Window” hinder it from registering on a truly emotional note. Imagine if instead of “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time),” the Delfonics had petulantly taunted “Bitch, I Blew Your Mind.”
“Put On a Smile,” my current favorite on the album and one of the few I’d consider for a Quiet Storm playlist, strikes a more vulnerable tone lyrically, but is undermined by questionable pacing. Rather than building gradually to the desperation-soaked hook, both .Paak and Mars begin their vocals at an intensity level of 11. It’s as if they’re competing rather than complementing each other, highlighting perhaps the most disappointing component of An Evening with Silk Sonic.
For all the fun they clearly have creating and performing together, the vocal chemistry between the two dynamic leads never quite coalesces. On paper, .Paak’s guttural grit appears the perfect counterpoint to Mars’ saccharine sheen. An Evening with Silk Sonic reveals that while the musical styles of their respective solo catalogues stand in contrast, their vocal textures are surprisingly similar — throaty rasps most at home in the middle registers.
Drummers by trade, both also have a tendency to punch home their lyrics with rhythmic precision rather than floating them with melodic levity. The similarity doesn’t allow for the ebb and flow upon which the greatest vocal duos soar. I’ve never had to pull up Genius to differentiate between Earth Wind & Fire’s Maurice White and Phillip Bailey, or New Edition’s Ralph Tresvant and Johnny Gill. I can’t say the same for An Evening with Silk Sonic. And Genius didn’t know either. The site credits both main verses of “Smokin’ Out the Window” to “Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak”.
The personas deployed by the two vocalists are just as non-distinct. .Paak inexplicably resumes a PG-13 version of the irreverent pimp alter ego from his NxWories collaborations with producer Knxwledge, which at times feels out of place over the glossily pristine production of Mars and D’ Mile (.Paak and his Free Nationals cohort are notably absent from the production credits.).
Rather than lean into the persona of the incurable romantic that seared his early pop hits into the hearts of teens and ‘tweens the world over, Mars, the ultimate chameleon, attempts to match .Paak’s pimp hand, leaving the project’s lyrical substance largely lacking in the soaring romanticism so immaculately captured in the production.
P-Funk court jester Bootsy Collins serves as the album’s “host”, appearing throughout to introduce tracks and hype up the stars. He’s by far the most colorful personality on the project, offering a hint at the fun that could have been had if Silk Sonic had fully embraced the theatricality of the album’s cabaret concept by playing truly over-the-top characters in the tradition of ’70s funk icons. Instead, An Evening with Silk Sonic largely languishes in tonal limbo between the cathartic emotionality of soul and the liberating surrealism of funk.
Ironically, the underperforming (at least compared to “Leave the Door Open”’s chart dominance) second single, “Skate,” offers the album’s most organic moment. Rather than reaching to recapture the magic of a time before their birth, the two Xennial singers reach back to the sound and spirit of their own 1980s childhoods for a freewheeling roller rink anthem. There’s no affected machismo or tongue-in-cheek genre tropes, just three and a half minutes of freewheeling fun.
“Blast Off” ends the project on a strong note, offering the “couple’s skate” denouement to the preceding track. Finally succumbing fully to the psychedelic impulses they’ve flirted with throughout, Mars and .Paak capture the timelessly ethereal ecstasy of new love. You can practically see the shimmer of the spinning disco ball as they croon “Let’s tiptoe to a magical place/Blast Off!/And kiss the moon tonight.”
Only 8 songs and an intro and clocking in at a crisp 31 minutes, An Evening with Silk Sonic is closer to a glorified EP than a proper album. With “Skate” and “Blast Off” appearing as the last two cuts, it feels as though Silk Sonic was just starting to find its groove, finally letting the vibe come to them instead of chasing it.
I suspect a follow-up, should we get one, will be more focused and comfortable in its skin. I’d listen eagerly, but I’m hardly pining for it. Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak both made their names as soloists and are, perhaps, better served remaining so. Pancakes and lasagna are both delicious, but not on the same plate.
Coincidentally, as I’m giving this piece a final once-over and wondering if I’m being too tough on an album I very much enjoyed, Heatwave’s “Sho’nuff Must Be Luv” has just popped up on Shuffle. The obscure 1976 album cut from Rod Temperton’s second shelf funk/disco outfit easily outshines the entirety of An Evening with Silk Sonic. The contrast puts Mars and .Paak’s excursion into proper focus.
When you boldly position yourself in the lineage of some of music’s most storied icons, you invite measurement on the most rigorous scale. The effusive critical acclaim with which An Evening with Silk Sonic has been lavished reflects the steep grading curve on which 21st Century R&B is judged. Had it actually come out during the late ‘70/early ’80s heyday it harkens so nakedly back to, it would have been an afterthought.
Given the talent of the project’s principals and our shared reverence for vintage funk and soul, I was hoping for a contemporary classic; a worthy 21st-century addition to the pool of genius in which the Jacksons, the Isleys, and Bootsy’s P-Funk compatriots swim. Instead, we got an entertaining, but ultimately disposable homage.
