By Maddy Gaillard – Staff Reporter 

Silk Sonic is an R&B duo featuring Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak. The band was announced in late February 2021 and released their debut single “Leave The Door Open” on March 5. Bruno Mars is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, musician and dancer. Mars was born in Hawaii and he is 36 years old. His first hit was the single, “Just The Way You Are”, released in July 2010, which put him on the Billboards Singles Chart. Since then, Mars has been releasing music and is a huge star. Anderson Paak is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer and drummer. Paak is from California and is 35 years old. His debut album, O.B.E Volume 1, was released in 2011 and was not a huge hit. Paak’s first song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 was “”Leave The Door Open. The duo’s debut album is called, “An Evening With Silk Sonic “and is a mix of pop, soul, funk and R&B. It has a mix of 9 songs including the intro song. The album in total is 30 minutes long. 

The strong points of this album are the mix of genre and the laid back feel it has. The album begins with an intro where it gives a hint of what the album will sound like. Some songs are more on the slow R&B side like the song “Smokin Out The Window”, while others are more of a pop/funk genre like “777” or “Fly As Me”. It is very difficult to get bored of this album because each song is different. The featured artists on the album are Thundercat and Bootsy Collins which provide more of a different sound and switch up the tone of the album. Overall, the genre of this album is very enjoyable and different from past Bruno Mars albums and the featured artists add a different sound to the album compared to it just being the duo. 

Some possible weak points of the album are that it is only around 30 minutes long and there are only nine songs. This can be improved by making more songs or adding more onto the existing ones, or when the next album comes out, it could feature more artists which will lead to longer/more songs. Overall, there are not many weaknesses to this debut album.

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars