Diandra Reviews It All

William Joseph Cook’s Sweet Dreamer is so 90’s, I cannot take it. It reminds of every 90’s films of disparate youth gathering at the record store to marvel at vinyls and pop posters of better, celebrity lives. In essence, what Millennials, kind of, do right now. Thus, I had a bit of a “real life” moment listening to Sweet Dreamer because it revealed how 90’s babies grew up to feel the same as 90’s youth: lost in dreams and discrepancies.
Will Joseph Cook – Beach (I Wanna Make You Mine)

I am always marveling how full circle life/ human history can be, and Cook, inadvertently, reveals this through an album of emo-pop/ indie rock tunes that soundtrack his day to day. What makes Sweet Dreamer so casually phenomenal is that its lyrics and chords seem to transpire in Cook’s head. It is as if you entered his mind one morning, and decided to stay in it and observe how he sees his life. Thus, the level of breezed intimacy turns tracks like “Beach (I Wanna Make You Mine)”, “Take Me Dancing”, and “Treat Me Like A Lover” into musical thoughts that bounce around your brain and the dancefloor in truth. Cook’s verbosity should not be underestimated because of how easy his album feels. His vocals waterfall through songs such as “Plastic”, “For Thursday”, “Light Of The Day” that vibrate in bright, guitar melodies. Yet, “Hands” and “Waters Gone Cold” sparkle with a piano-driven somberness. To hear them is like a rapid jump into the pristine waters of the ocean, of which Cook’s vocals wave over you in a ripe temperature between cool and warm.
Will Joseph Cook – Girls Like Me

Cook’s voice, like his music, is effortless and scales through songs to show its range and pace. “Biggest Fan” has Cook seemingly spewing modern sonnets of a love he admires, and “Habit” has him jumping octaves in slow and quickened pace to match his confusion over what is really his problem/habit: is he getting drunk off of too much liquor or love for someone? I loved this song, and I think it is a perfect emblem for the album because Cook leaps in pitch and power to give a story to listeners. Personally, I love songs that give storylines as much as messages or poetry. Throughout Sweet Dreamer, as previously explained, you feel like you are IN Cook’s life, which is why you grow to like him as a singer and person. It is weird to say that you grow charmed by a person’s humanity in song, but what is music if not a commentator and revealer of the human soul? I know I am getting rather deep for an album that flows and swishes with a natural and rhythmic infectiousness, but even a an easy listen can be heartfelt and poignant. Hence, Sweet Dreamer is both because it shows the euphoric and harsh realities of being young and trying to decipher how to enjoy an era that is supposedly “the best one” of your life.
Will Joseph Cook – Sweet Dreamer

The irony of youth is that it can be the roughest episode painted at the greatest one. Thus, the pressures, pitfalls, and promises, Cook sings to, with a piercing register of high and low notes, come from his challenge that if being young is so good, why can it feel so confusing and clashing? For More Information on William Joseph Cook, and to buy Sweet Dreamer on April 7 Click Here.
Will Joseph Cook – Take Me Dancing