Yahoo Lifestyle Teddy Swims Tries Almost Every Style — and Usually Succeeds — on ‘I’ve Tried Everything but Therapy (Part 2)’: Album Review
One of the downsides of this era of music is the way a smash song can overshadow the artist: A singer who’s been earning their chops for more than a dozen years — like Teddy Swims has — can find themselves filed alongside a teenaged one-hit wonder who’s never recorded outside their bedroom. While Swims’ massive hit “Lose Control” is that kind of smash, he’s come out swinging with the follow-up album, a big swing to prove himself as a career artist, and for the most part, “I’ve Tried Everything but Therapy Part 2” succeeds, although its head-spinning array of genres — different takes on pop, R&B and country — try a little too hard to be everything for everybody.
Having said that, he’s one of the best singers to come along in the past decade and the great songs here are stellar. The best are the R&B-leaning tracks: “Your Kind of Crazy” is a beautiful soul swoon that recalls Soul Sonic; “Black & White” (featuring Muni Long) is a sleek slice of Philly Soul; and best of all, his duet with Giveon, “Are You Even Real,” is one of the most sumptuous R&B songs we’ve heard in ages, with a gorgeous, indelible “Are YOU-oo-oo” chorus. Surprisingly, the song that seems like it could be the biggest misstep — “She Got It,” with Coco Jones and Glorilla — is actually pretty hot, with a swaggering groove and powerful verses from both guests (Glorilla’s verse even has some Memphis hip-hop production on it). The other standout is “Northern Lights,” as gorgeous a ballad as we’re likely to hear this year.
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A much more elaborate undertaking than its predecessor, “Therapy” part 2 employs many of the same top-shelf songwriters and producers (several of whom also worked on Sabrina Carpenter’s “Short n’ Sweet”) but super-producer Julian Bunetta is clearly in the driver’s seat, with major contributions from Jeff Gittleman, John Ryan and Mikky Ekko as well.
But the centerpiece of the album is unquestionably Swims’ stellar, versatile voice — while his attempts at multiple genres don’t always land (particularly on the gigantic pop songs, two of which have Imagine Dragons-style “WOAH-OH-OH” hooks), it’s more often due to oversized production and never because of his singing. None of which is to say any artist should feel confined to a single genre, but the consensus around here is that Swims is strongest as an R&B singer.
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