Concert Review: Stacey Ryan Defines Buzz-Worthy
I always wondered what it felt like to be the ¨new buzz,¨ like Stacey Ryan who played Irving Plaza, and be the one everyone is claiming ¨to watch¨ because somehow you have run into your own formula. If you see my interview with Duke & Goldie’s Eric Duquette, then you know we both wonder about ¨formulas.¨ What is just the right amount of personal chemistry with business strategy to make you feel like the most unique artist to be massively popular.
It is not without irony that I LITERALLY had just finished watching the Lewis Capaldi Netflix Doc when I went to see Stacey. The whole documentary is, basically, Capaldi spiraling over the pressure, 50% of it made by his inner self-saboteur, to transfer from the one everyone talks about as ¨on the rise¨ to actually risen, of which maintaining yourself as ¨ascended¨ may be harder than even Jesus´ resurrection. You felt bad at his genuine fear that in the future he would never be as good as his present, and I mention this dynamic because part of Ryan’s charm is that she performs as if there is nowhere to go but right here, right now.
Ryan sang songs off her EP f I Don’t Know What Love Is as if we were all there with her trying to figure it out. Personally, I think what makes an artist so buzz-worthy is that they tap into a certain, social feeling so precisely and specifically that they become universally known. From ¨Somebody Good¨ to ¨Fall In Love Alone,¨ the unabashed cover queen proved her original songs are as repeatable and oddly in line with her choice of covers. They all matched the vibrant loneliness of her cover songs such as, her known ¨Dancing Queen¨ and ¨Just The Two of Us.¨ She plays love like the most exuberant thing to happen to a great person who then has no idea how to handle it and self-combusts, which sounds about right. Not every love story is a tale of heartbreak as much as failure on how to grow.
As I wrote this statement, I had an epiphany. A ¨buzz-worthy¨ artist is, usually, someone we all really want to see grow and think that, naturally, they will. The way Ryan has so much fun and casual power as a performer, means she will, and in focusing her songs on the joy of being a good person that is not always so good at love, we will follow her lyrical escapades as if they have a 9pm slot on Bravo. Click Here For More Info On Stacey Ryan.
