First Impression: honeyflowers - Yellow Boy
Aching romanticism is honeyflowers’s domain, mostly through his smooth yet quivering voice. Here he contrasts the theme of unrequited love through an innocent indie pop sound. “ I made it sound specifically like an indie song just to almost satirize the formulaic nature that indie pop has become,” honeyflowers’s Paolo Santiago says. The sound does come with enhancements though: the lonely opening bells, the stuttering synth swells in the bridge, and the burning passion in the closing guitar solo.
The song title comes from his feeling of not being marketable because of his “race, shortness, and averageness.” Whether he’s singing about inadequacy (“you want somebody taller, a big burley baller, a jawline to cut your soul”) or humorously mocking ignorant assumptions (“Yellow boy, a distant relative of Jackie Chan,”) it works on every level. This brand of indie, pop, and rock is as wholehearted as it is heartbreaking.
Listen to honeyflowers below and add them on Instagram
