If this autumn’s pop music has had a consistent theme across the board, it’s simplicity. From country to hip-hop and back to rock n’ roll, there’s a demand for efficient songcraft unlike anything we experienced in the 2010s – a time in which decadence made a play for supremacy in pop music – and artists like Queeva and her potent brand of pastoral music are cashing in. In her new single “Over Time,” Queeva cuts away the frills from a tried and true country-pop model and gives us nothing but the meat of her melodies and a dry lyrical delivery that is cutting and unapologetic.
URL: https://www.queevamusic.com/
There’s no skewing familiar compositional cues with pointlessly obnoxious experimentation in this artist’s sound – she’s just too committed to a streamlined look in “Over Time” to have any room for the fluff and filler her rivals are building entire careers out of. From the moment we press play on this single forward, scarcely is there an instance in which it feels like I’m listening to anything other than a premium pop act that loves to get down with a little country groove every now and then.
There’s lust in this lead vocal that could drive home the narrative all on its own, but because of the big guns the band brings to the table, Queeva doesn’t have to give us a purely virtuosic performance to gain the affection of anyone listening to this track. Honestly, I think she sounds like she might be holding back from us a little bit, if for no other reason than to give the sizzle of the melodic parts in the background a bit more room to breathe (not that they need that much in the first place). The arrangement and even the nimble tempo of the percussion have a hard pop-inspired feel that makes me want to move along with the rhythm every time I listen to “Over Time,” and because the beat is always following our songstress, her verse isn’t catching up with the groove. She’s always in control of what’s transpiring in this mix, and not because of the precise production hand guiding every part of this song from the ground up.
https://open.spotify.com/track/4ZCxGcycZmPZGbRWHlL7jj
If you’re just now hearing about Queeva for the first time this autumn, you picked the right moment in the history of her music to get turned on to the sound she’s so proudly rocking out in “Over Time.” Rather than trying to fit in with a jaded pop model a lot of other artists are ready to kill themselves over in 2022, Queeva is taking a step towards the retro and abandoning the pressures that come with trying to be on top of every trend before they’re even a thing. This is a singer and songwriter who wants to bask in the rhythm of the music as much as she crushes the audience with her dynamic lead vocal, and in “Over Time” she makes it pretty clear just how passionate she is about the priorities for this project moving forward.
Gwen Waggoner
