On Under the Influence of Giants' "In the Clouds," Michael Jackson meets Prince meets The Bee Gees meets a significant chunk of the Billboard charts over the course of the last three decades. Students of pop culture and funky dance music, the band's members have created a quintessential summer soundtrack. Their colorful, crowd-pleasing sound seems made to serve as a backdrop for flirting across crowded rooms, wading through dance floors and rubbing up against an army of sweaty party people.
"In the Clouds" practically bursts with infectious energy, spilling over with disco beats and Vocoder-enhanced backing vocals, while singer Aaron Bruno unleashes a mean falsetto, evoking a younger and hipper Barry Gibb. The result is a fun, sexy anthem that shimmies with a cool confidence. Accessible enough for pop radio and savvy enough to span multiple eras of popular music, Under the Influence of Giants crafts a heady cocktail of soulful rock, slick party-pop and sly R&B. It's likely to get ubiquitous in a hurry, and it deserves the inevitable overexposure.
Listen to yesterday's 'Song of the Day.'
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