Music Review // Scott Klein "Sugar Baby"

 

There is something so familiar in the sound of the song "Sugar Baby".   A bit of soul comes in with those keys like The Wallflowers.  It's raw like The Honorary Title.   Even a bit of Chris Isaak comes out in the way the vocals sound like they are yearning.  It just takes me back to a time when bands like Fastball and Kula Shaker were more prominent on the radio and MTV.  But there is also that hook, that way of singing "She's my sugar baby" in the chorus which will get stuck in your head without you even knowing it.

Lyrically Scott Klein describes how this sugar lady / sugar baby is jumping from one break up to the next and I feel like we've all known someone like that.  The lines "She's a little on the dark side / Don't you feel it in your heart" stand out as it makes it feel like you know what you're getting into and that is just something that won't end well, but you must do it any way.  This also goes with the line that comes near the end and says: "There's something that you do to me".

It is entirely possible to feel so enchanted by someone but yet also know that they're going to get you into trouble.  While this does come out in the form of a woman during the song, it can also feel like it's an example of anything which we might keep as our vices.  In lines which remind me of Chris Isaak the lyrics say: "The desert will tease you / The days won't please you" and that just feels like that idea of getting lost in, getting consumed by whatever it is that you know you shouldn't but just cannot help yourself.

Scott Klein has created this sound which you might expect to hear when a bar fight is about to break out, but once these smooth harmonies come through perhaps the fighting takes a pause.  It's that idea of feeling like you're the beauty inside of the chaos, which is also what the song seems to be about lyrically.  Everyone probably has that belief that they can fix the person or be the one to take the drug and not overdose, but this song is just that reminder that when you play with fire you end up getting burned.