Music With Michele – “Fly Dandelion”
Music With Michele – “Fly Dandelion” – Single Review
Ohhhhhhh I tell ya folks…this scene we share is truly filled with all kinds of delightfully quirky characters that make this planet keep on turnin.’
Have you met Michele Ocean yet? Remember her from back in 2022 when we reviewed the song “Sunflowers” perhaps? We were apparently takin’ the meat outta the middle of the sandwich back then from what I’ve learned – that was the second of three singles, so we’re going back to the first now with “Fly Dandelion“ in review here today. You know, so that we can have a listen to where it all started and find out what inspired this project known as Music With Michele to keep on going from there. The real question is, what keeps her releasing one original song per year? Surely there’s more opportunity to make tunes at a faster rate is there not? When you listen to “Fly Dandelion” and hear the kind of randomized lyricism that Michele creates…I mean…clearly there’d be no shortage of inspiration in her life, right? I am quite positive this wonderful lady could look out the window on any given day & find about fifty things within her eyesight that she’d deem to be worth writing about. So what gives Michele – where’s the rest?
I’m kidding, of course. To be fair, she’s got plenty of other cover tunes at her YouTube channel. Make the music you make at the pace you wanna make it anyhow! Forcing the art and your creativity would never be the route I’d suggest taking. We’re livin’ in a world that moves way too quickly anyway. Think of it this way – if the average album is about twelve songs long, then Music With Michele is already a quarter of the way to the debut full-length record! Drop the balloons and celebrate! Milestone achieved. New goals unlocked. Bust out the “tacos & chips n’ guac” I say! Obviously I’m having some fun here, but I’m also being real with ya…we tend to focus on these big giant projects as the main markers of our progress in anything we do, and rarely acknowledge how it’s the tiniest steps we take that add up to the distance we eventually travel to get to the destinations we’re trying to reach. Doesn’t matter who you are – our time is short – so make sure you enjoy every inch of the journey y’all.
Music With Michele clearly started out being fun, and continued to thrive from where it all started back in 2021 with the release of “Fly Dandelion.” “Sunflowers” was a great time as well – and with a title like “Otter Space,” I have the sneaking suspicion that the third single from Music With Michele continues to keep her lighthearted vibes as the main priority. Much like we discovered in “Sunflowers” back in 2022, “Fly Dandelion” is an “Imperfect Production” – and by that, we can confirm it’s truly perfectly imperfect. Do I expect everyone out there to ‘get’ a track like “Fly Dandelion?” Heck no – of course not – but I’d assume that neither does Michele at the end of the day. She’s making music as a means of expression, an additional outlet for what I’m guessing is an endless well of creativity that she’s drawing from, and to have a good time with any of you out there that happen to stumble upon her wacky wonderfulness. I’ll give you an example of what we’re dealing with here…I present to you the second verse of “Fly Dandelion,” which goes a little something like this: “Honeybee/Buttercup/Mapley Syrup/Chili Fries/Onion Rings/Starry Night/Raindrops Sing.” I know what you’re thinking – come again? Is she reciting her grocery list out loud to remember? Is Michele just freakin’ hungry at the moment? Doesn’t she just wanna write about chicks and cars like everyone else in the music business? I suspect it’s really none of these things dear readers, dear friends – I believe that Michele just embraces her strangeness and not-so-secretly knows that it’s her superpower in life. Because even I’d tell ya that if I was to look at a song like “Fly Dandelion” on paper I’d think I was tripping out and that there’d probably be no chance that it’d be something I’d listen to…yet here we are, and I’d testify to the fact that there’s some kind of bizarre allure & natural enchantment that Music With Michele seems to generate in songs like this one.
So do I like it? Can I get behind this single and Music With Michele? Sure I can! Life is too damn serious all the time – we genuinely NEED people like Michele in our lives to provide some levity to this planet, or we’d probably spend more than half our days crying all the time. She embodies the real quirkiness of art, the courage of creativity, and the spirit required to just go with it, whatever it is and wherever it takes her. So you betcha – I respect that. “Fly Dandelion” is the fun she’s intended it to be, straight up.
Plus this song has got the added advantage in that it’s not ALL just gimmickry or humorous…there are deeper crossover elements that can’t be hidden or disguised. For example – Michele can sing! She might not necessarily be making a determined effort to be completely polished from start to finish, but she ain’t off the mark either, and it just so happens she’s got the natural talent required to sound pretty darn good at all times whether she’s trying her hardest to do so or not. She’s also got the extraordinary Davey Munch along with her as well, who provides the musicianship you’ll hear. In the case of a song like “Fly Dandelion,” you might even be inclined to somewhat assess the instrumentation as fairly basic, at least at first…until you hear this dude absolutely lighting up the bass. Then you’re basically speechless, because there’s no mistaking awesome when you hear it, and you’ll feel silly for ever having questioned his ability at all if you did at the start. He’s doing what he does to suit the song & the moment, and helping assist Michele with making her perfectly imperfect tunes come to life – I dig it. There’s personality in what they’re creating, and that counts for a lot in my world…hopefully in yours too. I might take umbrage with the “a la mode” apple pie featured in the video above that is so BLATANTLY NAKED AS A JAILBIRD that they had to make it age-restricted, because it TOTALLY looks half-baked at best & I had to squint my eyes and hold my stomach just to look at that monstrous kitchen nightmare…but aside from that, I find myself always more in a mood to support Music With Michele than to not. She makes our world brighter than it was the day before & always succeeds in that endeavor.
She’s also got an intense of love Grunge music like I do too if you have a look at the songs she’s chosen to cover on her YouTube channel, just sayin.’ Music With Michele – “because flowers & fish cannot sing” – she’s right about that – most of the flowers & fish I’ve met can’t hold a damn tune at all. Find out more about Michele from this fabulous multi-link right here: https://linktr.ee/Musicwithmichele
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