When it comes to the RIYL (“recommended if you like”) sections of press releases, you take such publicist hyperbole with a grain of salt. So Atlanta native Sydney Eloise is geared towards fans of Natalie Prass, Neko Case, Rilo Kiley, Fleetwood Mac, and Phil Spector, huh? Thing is, when you hear her new track “Tell Me What I Want to Hear”, from Sydney Eloise and the Palms’ debut album Faces, every single one of those boxes gets checked. Timeless and contemporary, it’s a gorgeous, extraordinarily simple track that utilizes a classic pop formula to perfection, making it sound fresh and vibrant. It deserves to be heard, and we are elated to premiere it here at PopMatters.
“When we recorded ‘Tell Me What I Want to Hear’, it really made us feel like the whole thing was starting to take shape,” she says. “It was one of the first songs we worked on that used multiple drum sets, and we kind of just decided that recording the way it’s done live was an idea we were throwing out the window. The studio itself [co-producer Damon Moon’s The Cottage] definitely played a role, from the super late nights we were afforded, to the privacy the hidden-away property gave us. It was easy to forget about jobs, and deadlines. We were able to get lost in the process, and we said yes to trying every idea. Of course, not every idea ended up in the song’s final form, but we ruled things out, which ended up being a huge part of our process as a band. LISTEN HERE…