Get ready to fall head over heels for Mario Vayne’s debut single “Baby” – a tantalizingly nostalgic and fiercely dynamic pop-rock love anthem.
Mario Vayne has been an active participant in the shifting music climate for decades. Despite his indisputable experience, he is only now releasing his debut single Baby. A delectably nostalgic and robust take on a pop-rock love song, doused in influences and Mario’s enigmatic, powerhouse vocal.
Baby is an introduction to Mario’s specific brand of charm; accessible, deeply layered and covered in crunchy guitars and rasping vocals, Baby feels like a number one radio dominator from the early 2000s.
Dazzling production and effortless songwriting gives Baby its aura of a classic. Structurally sound and intentionally crafted, Baby shines in its simplicity, though Mario’s hefty aptitude as a guitarist is a roaring constant.
Exploding with its chorus, Baby channels its rock ancestors through thick distortion and Mario’s Bon Jovi-like vocal. Simmering down into its verse, full with rim shots and verb, Mario gives us a moment to situate ourselves before Baby erupts once again. It’s a wise decision to place an onus on a chorus so striking as Baby’s, raw and captivating and emanating sentimentality.
There is something of a country adjacent energy that permeates Baby in its softer moments. Whether it’s in the bluesy guitar lines or the cheesy (but delightful) one liners, there is an anthemic quality to Baby that conjures images of a stadium audience raising their red solo cups in tribute to such an earth-shattering single. With a song so committed as Baby, there is no room for uncertainty.
In the same way that Highway To Hell would be cringeworthy if it weren’t for the immense confidence it is presented with, Baby reeks of confidence and style, as well as fervent talent.
It’s difficult to offer a pop-rock song of such calibre in our current musical atmosphere, – filled with computer generated sounds and shift-pitched vocals – but Mario does this without concern for what others are doing. There is a sense of staying true to oneself with such vigour that the result can only be something as dominant as Baby.
It is difficult to process that this is Mario’s debut single, but perhaps that is because he is in no way new to understanding and embodying the music that alights his heart. Baby is unstoppable, and likely so is Mario Vayne.
Listen to Baby below.
Review by Caitlin Norris
