In her latest single, “Hold the Moon,” Charley Young is as vulnerable with listeners as she is fierce in her cunningly charismatic style of attack. Atop a swaying synthesized groove, Young’s vocal ascends into the heavens from which her harmonies were first spawned, taking all of us with it in a powerfully melodic chorus that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. “Hold the Moon” is quite possibly this young songwriter’s most complete single to date, and it’s definitely among the best pop singles to be released by an underground artist this month.
The instrumental half of “Hold the Moon” demands our attention as often as the lyrical content does. The synthesizers have a story of their own to be told in this single, and as engrossing as Young’s lead vocal is, it doesn’t steal all of our attention away from the melodic synth grind that serves as a backdrop to her poetic verses. This song is multidimensional and expressive in ways that other pop tracks just aren’t.
SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/mscharleyyoung/hold-the-moon-charley-young
This master mix has some physicality to it but is mostly a streamlined specimen (especially next to Jimmy Greco’s remix of “Greedy” and the title track of the Phoenix Rising EP). Its efficient structure helps it to balance the brawn with the smooth pop balladry, and it’s a good example that Young’s closest rivals could stand to learn a lesson from. This is clearly an artist that puts a lot of work into every aspect of her music instead of merely the cosmetic surface elements alone.
If you haven’t heard her work before, “Hold the Moon” is an excellent way to acquaint yourself with the music of Charley Young, who is starting to sound like a bonafide pop superstar in this all-new slice of summer fun. Whether it’s the textured melodies or the hypnotic beats, this is a single that will have pop fans young and old wanting to hit the dancefloor this season, and I think that there’s a good chance that it could attract even more mainstream attention than previous releases from Young have. Any way you break it down, it’s an amazing look for this singer and songwriter, who has unquestionably made a lot of artistic progress in 2019.
Kim Muncie