Tuesday Mach 1, 2022
Originally from Oregon, US, New Zealand based singer-songwriter Emme Lentino’s brand of country-tinged pop, soul, and pop-rock has featured in several daytime television shows, including ABC’s One Life to Live and All My Children.
She has also performed in an off-Broadway production and collaborated with DJ/producer Vasili Gavre, writing, recording, and performing a song in the Victoria’s Secret national BIOFIT campaign. Fresh from the success of her festive season track Last Christmas (George Michael), which was featured on MTV Australia, the Philadelphia News Channel 17, CTV Calgary (National News in Canada), Global News (National News, Canada), and received airplay on commercial radio world-wide and consumer outlets including Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Emme’s new release unveils another side to the singer-songwriter’s creative armoury, adopting a synth-pop sensibility with a modified vocal performance to underscore a straight to the point lyric. Shake It Off reflects a broad, changing musical perspective, featuring a range of subtle hooks, including power-pop guitar blasts and laid-back R&B grooves. Less country-pop and more contemporary pop, and more precisely, synth-pop, Shake It Off merges darker, more brooding tones, with a series of synth and keyboard textures, most prominently a swirling keyboard bass around which the track seems to revolve.
But threaded through are some enticing guitar touches, muted rhythms and interlocking riffs that add to the general sonic aura. The lyric is direct and clear, yet beneath this accessibility is another layer. The chorus seems to operate from two perspectives, and this dual focus gives the lyric a more dramatic tint. In the first half of the chorus, we are speaking directly to the main players, ‘Shake it off, do your thing / Speak your mind, just be free’, in the second half, it’s as if we are with another group, surveying the first, with the lines, ‘Don’t judge, you never know / A book can’t be uncovered unless you read it’.
Shake It Off is a noticeable change of musical direction for Emme Lentino yet will undoubtedly expose to her to a more extensive audience base.
