Xaviera
The Make Up Song
Xaviera is a pop artist from NYC who’s began releasing material in 2021. Even though this is just her third release, she’s certainly got a feel on her tone and what the best vibe should be to build around it. There’s hints of Sade meets Aaliyah, with just the right amount of the latest sounds of Urban Pop. Here’s our review of "the makeup song.”
It’s a dark and moody start around 84 BPM that oscillates between two minor chords as the set up. The vocal delivery is soft but certain and she does a great job of moving between lines of rapid delivery or sparse deployment. The nonchalant way in which she delivers her lines is very relatable to the lyrical topic - the confusion of communication in the midst of a breakup, which is perfectly relatable to every woman who’s had her heart broken by a man for whom she still cares for. Not hard to imagine heavy tears being shed over the feels and content.
Behind her, the beat holds steady while a swirl of ethereal patches add to the ambience of the track. The mix is on point - it splits the focus between the beat and low end, with her vocals that get buoyed by her solid BG’s and beautiful runs. The producer does a great job of mixing her true tone with the autotuned and compressed tone that is such a hallmark of the genre - it’s not overused, it works perfectly. If you’ve heard Ben Platt’s album “Reverie,” that’s a great example of using it to the extreme, here they are using it as a subtle instrument. This is displayed perfectly in the second verse, right around 1:20 and after when her melody goes into her upper range and floats back down in the most compelling part of the track.
It’s easy to overlook songs like this that are more mood than dynamic composition. To do so would be to miss out on so much of the genre. Think about your favorite tracks from Sade or Aaliyah and the listening experience it gave you. More often than not, it was the groove, the accompaniment and the vocal delivery that compelled you to keep listening - not some blistering solo or complex chord progression. There’s a beauty in keeping it simple and this track is a solid example of that.
Xaviera strikes us as the type of R&B / soul artist that could explode from “out of nowhere.” Check out here other solo tracks, 6 and “maybe he’s…gay?” and perhaps you’ll agree. There’s not too many artists who nail down their sound within the first few cuts. She shows a lot of promise and we look forward to what she’ll be doing next!