Mini music review number 1
Lauren Frihauf
Welcome to the first installment of my mini reviews. Punk, post-punk, and instrumental post-rock are by far my favorite genres of music and make up at least 80% of my daily listening. So it makes perfect sense for my first review to be for a singer-songwriter that isn’t anywhere near any of those genres, right? Last summer I clicked on a recommended video on YouTube for a School of Rock performance of the Mamas and Papas’ folk rock classic California Dreamin’. The performance was from five or six years ago but it was the first time I had seen it. Since then I’ve watched it a couple dozen times. It’s one of those songs that’s pretty much impossible to do a bad version of but these kids really knocked it out of the park and I think I prefer it to the original. The thing that grabbed me the most on the track is Lauren Frihauf’s vocals. All of this is a long-winded way of saying, “hey, I heard this singer on a video and I want to hear more from her.”
After looking her up I saw that she’s from Byers, Colorado and had been a contestant on The Voice in 2020 at age 16. I’ve never watched that show but know it’s pretty popular. The timing was just about perfect to be looking for her since she had just released her debut solo album a few weeks earlier. She had also released an EP in 2022. She writes her own music but has a nice selection of covers on her YouTube channel as well.
I decided to make her my first feature since I’m interested in where her career goes and figured this would be a good reference point to watch it from. I’d like to see her do something a bit more rocking but that’s the heavy music fan in me coming out. Her neo-soul, singer-songwriter stuff is great though and I could see her having a Joss Stone or Michelle Branch type of career or possibly collaborating with the right producer I could see her doing a Sylvan Esso type of project. No matter what direction she goes I’ll be listening.
Subscribe if you want to see the next edition. I haven’t decided on a schedule yet but I’m thinking either twice a week or weekly. A teaser for the next one: it will be a punk band from my hometown of Roanoke, Virginia.