Mikky Ekko plays pinball in his recently-released moody video for "Kids," the second single from Ekko's forthcoming debut studio album. The first time Yours Truly heard that song it sounded a lot different. Follow-up from the megatronic lead single, "Pull me Down," the 29-year-old Nashville singer displays his indie-epic side on new cut, which is masterful and melancholic, a freight train roaring through nostalgia. As he explains that the song came to him during the London riots, when he was thinking about how different things were when he was growing up. "Kids" is the first sign that, in Ekko's own words, he's "starting the next chapter."
While the original is effective in its own way, this singularly naked and bare-boned version with just piano and vocals is powerful. He recruited Benny Blanco and John Hill to produce this absolutely irresistible anthem that's sure to be an inescapable soundtrack to your summer. "Kids are gonna do what they want!" Ekko sings, tinged with just enough charming melancholy, and you can't help but raise the volume, get a taste of that clattering percussion and those thrumming synths and strings, and sing along. The Southern crooner has the sort of voice that is exactly two notches above James Blunt-esque.
Where Ekko anthem "Kids" grabs you, firstly, with its big, wide-eyed vocal melody, and it reels you in with a pretty minor detail—the crisp finger snaps that he's substituted for the original's chunky digital bounce, echoing into a delicate, almost inaudible infinity. Skeletal and slanted are the first words that come to mind in describing the Vienna-based producer and LuckyMe artist's idiosyncratic version, which chops up the vocal, pitches it downward, and punctuates it with wonky synth chords in a way that almost undermines its melodic momentum, but ultimately ends up doing quite the opposite.
With nothing but his black tee, baggy pants, a crucifix and a shiny, intergalactic-looking pinball machine, Ekko travels from locale to locale in his video for synthy new single "Kids." You'll know the Southern crooner fresh off from his recent stint as duet partner on high-profile Rihanna's mega-hit "Stay," a song Ekko wrote. Here, however, Ekko is front and center, looking angsty while flanked by umbrella-toting women in the desert, knocking a pinball around by the side of a lonely American highway and hanging out on a barren city street at night. Give the video a spin below.
Where Ekko anthem "Kids" grabs you, firstly, with its big, wide-eyed vocal melody, and it reels you in with a pretty minor detail—the crisp finger snaps that he's substituted for the original's chunky digital bounce, echoing into a delicate, almost inaudible infinity. Skeletal and slanted are the first words that come to mind in describing the Vienna-based producer and LuckyMe artist's idiosyncratic version, which chops up the vocal, pitches it downward, and punctuates it with wonky synth chords in a way that almost undermines its melodic momentum, but ultimately ends up doing quite the opposite.
With nothing but his black tee, baggy pants, a crucifix and a shiny, intergalactic-looking pinball machine, Ekko travels from locale to locale in his video for synthy new single "Kids." You'll know the Southern crooner fresh off from his recent stint as duet partner on high-profile Rihanna's mega-hit "Stay," a song Ekko wrote. Here, however, Ekko is front and center, looking angsty while flanked by umbrella-toting women in the desert, knocking a pinball around by the side of a lonely American highway and hanging out on a barren city street at night. Give the video a spin below.
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