Label: Aftermath, Atlantic

Producers: Bruno Mars, D’Mile

Release Date: November 12th, 2021

Rating: 4.5/5

The best collab album of the decade is hard to accomplish; however, An Evening with Silk Sonic by Silk Sonic did just that. 

I’ll be the first to say that I hate how artists release singles from an upcoming album to the general public. It always seems like we get the best songs first and are super disappointed with the rest of the album. However, the Paak/Mars duo knew exactly what they were doing. 

They first released their hit single “Leave the Door Open” on March 5, 2021, announcing the groups’ arrival.  

The group then released two more pieces, “Skate,” and most recently, “Smokin Out The Window.” These two songs created a massive buzz around the group that carried into the release of the album.  

Now, onto the album! It starts off very slow. It takes two songs to get to a new piece of music… and honestly, the wait to get a new song wasn’t worth it. 

The first new song we hear is “Fly As Me,” and there is nothing special about it. But it shows that something bigger is coming as the tracks continue.  

“After That Night” is exactly what fans were asking for. As the first collab of the album, the expectations for it were extremely high…. and artists Thundercat and Bootsy Collins brought the funk. It gave the vibe of a being in a 70s nightclub listening to a local group perform. 

One of the overarching themes throughout the album is the voice-overs of Anderson Paak on multiple songs. Starting on “After That Night,” listeners hear the artist talk directly to the audience. His ad-libs add a whole new dimension to the album that I never knew I needed. 

“Smokin’ Out The Window” is stuck right in the middle of the album. This song was released just a week before the full album and took the internet by storm. It has become a global trend on Tik–Tok, which is arguably one of the leading factors to the album’s success. The group has taken this trend to the next level, creating an account themselves and reposting their fans’ videos. 

After this come the two best songs of the album, “Put On A Smile” and “777,” respectively. “Put On A Smile” is easily the best song on the album. It has everything you could possibly want from the group. It starts off slowly and the beat builds all the way to about the three-minute mark. At this point, it’s all head voice for Mars. The group all know what type of talent they have and step back to let Mars go to work. 

Besides his incredible vocals, the lyrics follow the rhythm of the song incredibly well. The key change comes when the group sings, “when the only thing worth smiling for,” allowing Mars to sing the word “you” over and over again. The doors feel like they burst open right here, and you honestly can’t help but smile. 

After the new sound of Mars in this song, he turns back the clock for “777”. It instantly gave flashbacks to “Runway,” from his 2010 album “Doo-Wops & Hooligans.” It provides the same fast-paced rhythm with a powerful pulse. This was, of course, the album that made Bruno, Bruno, through hit songs such as “The Lazy Song” and “Grenade.”  

The album ends with another new song, “Blast Off.” The song’s lyrics bring up a theme of levitating and leaving reality. This is honestly the perfect end of the album. The album’s vibe is that of levitating, calm beats with very smooth vocals. The song brings you down from this journey that began some thirty minutes ago and back into reality, with Paak greeting the listener at the end wishing for happy trails.  

What this album does so incredibly well is that there is not one single filler song. Filler songs are songs within an album that is very clearly included by an artist to make the album longer. Although fans clearly wished they had more songs, the album is nearly perfect because of how short it is. The duo can bring the listener back even with a slow start (purely because the first two songs were released before the album). By the end, the listener is just itching for more. 

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