Songland – Season 1 Episode 4 Recap & Review

Sibling Song Splicing Shenanigans

Back for another slice of reality TV, Songland returns with the Jonas Brothers taking the hot-seat and choosing a song to call their own. Looking for a track they can take around the world with them, following a 3 minute introduction we see our first wave of songwriters.

First up is “Greenlight”, a song about finding love after Able tells about his upsetting past involving his mum. He does ghost work for other artists too, producing beats and writing lyrics for other artists making him a prime candidate for this sort of show. This also gives him a bit of an edge too, meaning The Jonas Brothers can talk to him like an actual artist – including casual remarks about key changes and bars.

Remi is up next, with his song “Flickering”. This pop record does feel like it needs some ‘oomph’ if I’m honest and this feels like the sort of song Songland should be trying to capture and change.

Ori is a young boy who writes a song called “No Pressure”, another song about love but this one has a very pop-orientated feel to it. It also sticks closely to a simple four to the floor beat as well. At the end, they change the song’s key but the songwriter does comment that they really like the changes, chiming in with their thoughts.

“Crowded Places” is a song about missing people in LA, sung beautifully by Rynn which the producers also give some critique around. From here, the top 3 go forward and the producers have their usual one on ones before splicing up and cutting the songs ready for the final 10 minutes, which showcase these 3 songs in their new format.

Crowded places is done on a piano with the chorus changed slightly and more kick around the beat and words. I actually think the song works better this way round and the emphasis on the backing instruments really brings out the vocals nicely. Greenlight meanwhile, has been changed to emphasize the chorus to repeat “light” but it feels like it should have a dubstep beat over this segment. To the surprise of absolutely no one, Greenlight is picked at the end.

Once again Songland delivers a pretty standard episode although the songs they choose and change are, for the most part, improved for the better. They certainly fit with the Jonas Brothers’ musicality, with Crowded Places in particular arguably the best transformation out of any song showcased this season on the show. Hopefully the rest of the episodes can follow suit and deliver in this way as Songland has felt, at times, like it’s doing a disservice to the original songs.

Still, there’s enough here to chew over but as I said last week, I feel like the show should be more adventurous and bring in artists from a range of different genres to really show off the differing styles and what goes into making each genre of song. Still, that’s a personal gripe and Songland continues to deliver a reasonably entertaining slice of reality TV.