In 2020, we’re arguably witnessing pop music’s most diverse era unfold before our very ears, and you really needn’t look much further than underground acts like up and comer Leni Black to know exactly what I’m talking about. Leni Black is a new kid on the block this fall, and in her debut single “Barcelona Butterflies,” she makes a strong case for dismissing the notion that rookies can’t create something profound right out of the gate. “Barcelona Butterflies” follows a pretty basic pop songwriting formula, but its cosmetics are hardly of the traditional variety. With a talented lead singer at the helm and some experimental faceting beneath the most exciting moments for us to behold, this single doesn’t waste time casting a spell over all of those within earshot of its harmonies.
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This is definitely a composition that turns the spotlight towards the vocal before it does anything else in the master mix, but this isn’t to suggest that the instrumentation is somehow lacking or feels thrown together in the least (nothing could be further from the truth). Although there are a couple of instances in which Black admittedly steals the lot of potential thunder away from anything and everything in the studio with her here, there’s no blatant instances of her overwhelming any specific components with her voice – which, of course, isn’t to say that she couldn’t in the right circumstances. She has more self-control than the average newcomer to this genre, and you don’t have to be a professional music critic to recognize as much.
It would be really interesting to hear an acoustic version of “Barcelona Butterflies” at some point in the near future, mostly just to confirm what I suspect about its sterling structure. At its core, this single isn’t necessarily defined by any of the electrifying textures that are produced directly by the harmony, but instead by the way Leni Black ties everything together with her voice, amalgamating emotions, tones, rhythm and rhyme all at once. It’s an impressive attribute I want to see her employ even more in her next project, which, judging from the buzz this is getting, could easily come before the end of 2020 if the chemistry inside of the studio remains strong.
I had never heard of Leni Black before I got into “Barcelona Butterflies,” but in its three and a half minutes of play I have fallen in love with the sound she has created for herself here. There haven’t been many singer/songwriters to catch my attention out of Boston in the past ten months, but if this is the caliber of player the city’s iconic scene is starting to submit once more, I’m going to make a point of paying closer attention to what their underground has to offer in 2020. The pop genre is reaching new heights that a lot of critics weren’t quite sure it could this year, and with artists like Black at the forefront of a revolution, I think we can expect to hear a lot of quality music in this unfolding decade.
Troy Johnston