Music Review: Dylan Gardner

Music Review: Dylan Gardner

If you enjoy listening to The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, or The Doors, you might enjoy Dylan Gardner. Gardner is an 18 year old singer/songwriter/musician from Illinois. He was signed to Big Deal Music Publishing in 2013 and released his debut album, Adventures in Real Time, in May 2014. The album features ten tracks that consist of several genres that include pop, rock, and indie/alternative.

He’s not afraid to show his greatest influences in his lyrics. Let’s Get Started begins with, “I’ll be John and you’ll be Yoko. Sit back and watch out love grow. I’ll be winter, you’ll be summer,” alluding to John Lennon from The Beatles.

Gardner’s style is strongly influenced by the sound from the 60’s, especially The Beatles. He fuses this sound with a pop rock sound that helped him find a place in the music scene. This became apparent when Gardner first achieved recognition by posting a cover of The Beatles’ album, ‘Abbey Road’ on YouTube in early 2014. In this video, he plays each song from the album for 15 seconds – each time with a different instrument- showcasing how talented Gardner is. He plays the piano, the guitar, the ukulele, the accordion and a few other instruments. It only has a little over 50,000 views, but his single from his first album, “Let’s Get Started,” has more than 3 times that many views. Not that impressive? “Let’s Get Started” has over 3 million plays on Spotify, a significantly stronger number than what he’s gotten on YouTube. He received enthusiastic reviews, including one from popdose.com saying, “Simply put, this is one hell of an accomplished debut.”

While “Let’s Get Started” was extremely catchy overall and deserved its 3 million plays on Spotify, there were a couple more songs that should have received more attention. “Heroes Tonight” caught my attention because opposed to “Let’s Get Started,” it started off with a few fun piano notes and then brought in the drum. The song was also very catchy, something I could picture a crowd at a concert singing along to. “Too Afraid To Love You” sounded like a younger, more upbeat version of “Our Song” by Matchbox Twenty and showed a different tone in Gardner’s voice. Unlike the first three songs of the album, Gardner’s voice had a lower pitch in “Our Song.” Halfway through the album, the tempo slows down. “The Actor,” the sixth track, wasn’t all that great for me and seemed a bit out of place because the rest of the album created a cheerful mood, but it was darker and showed that Gardner doesn’t just write repetitive lyrics. The last song of the album is “Invincible.” It was the perfect closing song for the album because it gives the feeling optimistic and that we will hear more from Gardner.

Adventures In Real Time is a catchy, happy album that gives the music of the 60’s a fun twist. Throughout the album, you can hear similarities in Gardner’s voice to a few popular artists such as Ezra Koenig (Vampire Weekend) and Nate Ruess (Fun). Overall, I give the album a 7/10.