There are very few songs nowadays that accurately convey emotion–often modern-day musicians stick to tinny trap beats behind monotone vocals (and the occasional autotuned riff) –but nothing can beat the sound of authentic instruments. 

Sammy Rae and the Friends, a band consisting of a rhythm section, horn section, and background dancers and singers, headed by the lead vocalist Sammy Rae, blends sounds from jazz, funk, rock, and soul to create an entirely unique and unconventional genre of music. They write relevant music that caters to every modern taste while still holding true to genuine musicianship.

This year, Sammy Rae and the Friends released a single entitled “Closer to You,” a pop-funk blend that is whimsical by nature yet somehow rooted in reality. The song details the loss of a lover and the pain of watching them move on with someone else. In the chorus, Sammy Rae repeats the line “I’m getting a whole lot closer to you” until it eventually changes to “Someone’s getting a whole lot closer to you.” Though it begins light-hearted, the song quickly takes a turn (both lyrically and chordally) and becomes darker and detached. 

As someone who can identify with the message in “Closer to You,” I believe the song is a masterpiece of its time. The bridge (“First it’s finding out you’ve got a boyfriend that I’ve never met/Then I say remember that night on the rooftop/You say I forget”) uses a jarring B minor chord (out-of-context in the song’s key of G), which is designed to make the listener feel uncomfortable. Sammy wails “I forget” to climax the bridge, but the song almost immediately quiets afterwards. Sammy, frustrated with loving someone who will never love her back, repeats the line “That don’t matter anymore” over and over again until she becomes enraged, belting “What you bringing a knife to a hand fight for?/What you bringing a gun to a knife fight for?” at her lover, begging them to tell her why they use so much ammunition to knock her down when they could do it with only a few words. 

She goes on to say that she’s finally living her life the way she wants without having to feel tied down by her past relationship. The use of familiar chords makes the last verse seem as if she is looking back on her past self. In the last line, she softly tells her ex-lover that she hopes they have “Someone getting a whole lot closer to you,” signaling that she has figured out her worth and fallen in love with someone new. The last lines give closure to Sammy’s situation. 

The song itself has an incredible arc that tells the story simply and clearly so that it’s easy to understand, even when you don’t know all the lyrics. Sammy and the Friends do an excellent job of making their music imitate feelings rather than sounds, immersing you in emotion as soon as you hit play.