An Evening with Silk Sonic
An Evening with Silk Sonic is the debut studio album by American musical superduo Silk Sonic, composed of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak. It was released on November 12, 2021, by Aftermath Entertainment and Atlantic Records. Silk Sonic reunited with Christopher Brody Brown and James Fauntleroy to write the album. They recruited American musician Bootsy Collins, who came up with the name for Mars and Paak's duo, for narration and American record producer D'Mile to compose the album. Recording sessions for An Evening with Silk Sonic took place from early 2020 to mid-2021 at Shampoo Press & Curl Studios.
An Evening with Silk Sonic
November 12, 2021
2020–2021
Shampoo Press & Curl
31:19
Several critics said An Evening with Silk Sonic was crafted from elements of R&B, soul, funk, hip hop and pop music. The lyrics of An Evening with Silk Sonic explore themes featured in previous Mars's albums, such as "seduction, romance", reconciliation, and materialism. Anderson .Paak is said to not have written about materialism previously.[1]
An Evening with Silk Sonic debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 chart with first-week sales of 104,000 equivalent album units and became Mars's second and .Paak's first number-one album on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. It also peaked in the top-five in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand, and produced five singles: "Leave the Door Open" and "Smokin out the Window", which were commercially successful, while "Skate" charted moderately in various countries. Two other singles "Love's Train", a cover of Con Funk Shun's song, and "After Last Night" were made available for consumption in 2022, with each one of them having minor commercial success. "Leave the Door Open" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and New Zealand, becoming Mars's eighth and .Paak's first number-one song in the United States. The album was certified gold by Music Canada (MC) and platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
An Evening with Silk Sonic received universal acclaim, and is the most acclaimed studio album of Mars' career, with reviewers praising its retro sensibility and the chemistry between Mars and .Paak. At the 64th Grammy Awards in 2022, "Leave The Door Open" won four Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best R&B Performance and Best R&B Song. Several publications listed the album as one of the best records of the year and Billboard named it as the seventh-best album of 2021. The album was also promoted via An Evening with Silk Sonic at Park MGM (2022), along with a number of performances at various award shows.
Background[edit]
American singers Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak met in 2017 while touring together on the European leg of Mars's 24K Magic World Tour (2017–18). The two were seen in the studio working with Nile Rodgers and Guy Lawrence of Disclosure.[2] They quickly became friends and decided to collaborate on a project together. In an interview with New Zealand radio DJ Zane Lowe for the Apple Music radio station Apple Music 1, Mars said that most of the album is "rooted in [.Paak's] drum beats". He continued, saying that he works "backward from the guitar or piano", whereas .Paak's "music is percussion-driven, derived from old-school Motown influence." They credit each other for the sound that models Silk Sonic.[3] According to American record producer and songwriter D'Mile, Silk Sonic became a project after Mars, .Paak and he worked on a song.[4]
On February 26, 2021, Mars and .Paak announced they had recorded an album together under the band name Silk Sonic. At the time, the band's debut album was set to be titled An Evening with Silk Sonic, featuring American musician Bootsy Collins as a special guest host.[5] At the same time, the artwork was revealed and is a retro sketch of the two hitmakers' floating heads that reads, "An evening with Silk Sonic ... with special guest host Bootsy Collins". They also announced the release of the first single the following week, along with the album title.[6][7]
.Paak says Mars considers every detail of a song, such as its theme, its sounds, and how they would engage people with the chorus, while .Paak is more of a free form, perceptive and "What's the vibe?" musician. The latter affirmed they were inspired by the 1960s, 1970s, and "the old school". According to Mars, they reunited in the studio during the night to drink and play music they enjoy. .Paak said the duo was influenced by Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder and Prince. The duo "bonded over their love of classic soul" and would usually play each other songs they loved. .Paak was not sure the project would become a reality if the COVID-19 pandemic had not occurred, since they would have been playing shows at that time.[8]
Silk Sonic explained that despite the police killings and the pandemic, they decided not to address said issues on their music. Mars furthered, "A good song can bring people together...so that was our mindset with the whole album. If it makes us feel good, and resonates with us, that's gonna be infectious and make other people feel good." .Paak said both have suffered a lot during their lives and that this album is their way to cope with it. Nevertheless, Silk Sonic recorded a track with "heavier" substance, but Mars was uncertain if he wanted to include the song on the album. When they finished the session, Mars played the recording for himself and decided to drive to .Paak's house. When the latter listened to the song on the car he decided to reject it, despite working on it for weeks. Mars explained that he has mixed every album he released since his debut, by listening to it in his Cadillac CTS to understand how it would play out in an ideal "real-world scenario".[8]
Recording[edit]
In early 2017, after .Paak and Mars met on tour, they decided to get together in the studio with no intent, besides their mutual appreciation and affection.[8][9] At this point, the duo decided to try if they could turn the "backstage in-jokes" into songs. The first thing they wrote together started with one of them saying the sentence "Smoking out the window". They created an amusing "stressed-out" man smoking too many cigarettes as he tries to find his way out of "anxious" situations. When they got together in the studio, the "joke" was turned into a hook.[9] Once the tour ended, the sessions were put on hold.[8]
Nevertheless, in February 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic, Mars was listening to what they had recorded, and "it hit the right chord" so he called .Paak to join him in the studio. However, it was the latter's birthday and, despite being drunk, he met Mars at the studio. When they started to write a song, "a competitive" and a friendly spirit emerged as they were trying to improve on the work. They enjoyed so much working together, the duo decided to keep going. .Paak affirmed that, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, they decided to get together in the studio instead of "trying to make music long-distance".[8] In the studio, the duo would jam out, trying to understand how to make people feel good with the songs they created from scratch and what was missing on the tracks, having to recreate a song from scrap at times.[9][8] While in the studio, Mars and .Paak tried to create a dream setlist. They dubbed it as "the setlist of doom", however they needed someone who could "thread" all the songs. They both admired American musician and singer Bootsy Collins, who not only came up with the name for Mars and Paak's duo but also hosted the album.[3] Mars declared, "Anderson coming into the studio and unlocking something in my brain that I've never used before ... That's how inspiration happens, you know?"[3]
Mars reunited with frequent collaborators, American songwriter and producer Christopher Brody Brown, as well as Canadian recording engineer Charles Moniz to record An Evening with Silk Sonic.[8] At this point, Mars asked American singer-songwriter James Fauntleroy to get in touch with D'Mile, after Mars found the latter on Instagram and heard his composition on Lucky Daye's debut studio album, Painted (2019).[4] Once in the studio, D'Mile wanted to make a good impression by finishing the track that Mars had started and do nothing else until he completed it. However, Mars told him "we're here all the time. I would love for you to come rock with us."[10] The former became one of the core composers of the album. The duo also worked with American rapper and record producer Dr. Dre, who gave feedback on the project.[8] Homer Steinweiss, American drummer of the Dap-Kings, who had previously worked with Mars on Unorthodox Jukebox (2012) and 24K Magic (2016), also contributed to the album by playing drums on a song.[8][11][12]
To achieve the sound they were aiming for, Sonic and Moniz had to reach out to elderly "session guys" and read "old drumming magazines". They needed the right gear, such as a Ludwig drums with Remo Ambassador heads, Giovanni Hidalgo congas, a Hohner Clavinet D6 keyboard, a Danelectro sitar, a Trophy Music mini-Glockenspiel and a Solid State Logic mixing board. Afterward, they were "emulating old-school playing styles and recording them", using one or two mics and several musicians playing at the same time in the same place. Despite having all the instruments to re-create the sound they were not able to do so at that time. According to .Paak, they were "fucking bashing!", while the ones that came before them were "tiptoeing".[8]
Sonic disclosed their process when re-working a small transaction on a song. The latter pays tribute to Philadelphia soul featuring a "string section and a sampled rainstorm". Its lyrics detail a heartbreak and how to deal with it after. Mars, D'Mile, and .Paak heard each instrument isolated and realized that the drums were not adequate. The latter replayed the drum section for 20 minutes, as Mars and D'Mile gave their opinion. Once the drumline was established, Mars turned its attention to the piano section, which took ten minutes to find an arrangement everyone enjoyed.[8] According to D'Mile, all the tracks they came up with are included on the album, but one. When they were unhappy with the version created, they remixed it so that everyone from Mars to the engineer's assistant, liked it.[10]
Commercial performance[edit]
An Evening with Silk Sonic debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 104,000 equivalent album units, which consists of 42,000 album sales, 60,000 streaming units calculated from the 82.6 million on-demand streams of the album's tracks, and 2,000 in track equivalent album units.[93] In its second week, the album remained in the top ten and fell to number four, earning 50,000 album-equivalent units.[94] By the end of 2021, the album had surpassed a billion streams.[95]
An Evening With Silk Sonic sold 37,000 copies on vinyl becoming the largest sales week for an R&B album on vinyl, a record previously held by The Weeknd's Dawn FM (2022) with 34,000 copies.[96]
Seven of the nine songs from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 the same week.[97] "Leave the Door Open", "Smokin out the Window", "Love's Train" and "After Last Night" topped the Adult R&B Airplay. This achievement led An Evening with Silk Sonic to become the second album with four number-one singles on the former chart, tying with Toni Braxton's self-titled (1993) studio album.[59]
Notes