Dillon Francis - Happy Machine LP [Sweat It Out / Mad Decent] is a happy lot of electronic pop songs - written to make the world happy after such pandemic related sadness.
My Listening Experience
Reflecting on my two days of listening to Happy Machine LP [Sweat It Out / Mad Decent], I think superstar producer, songwriter and DJ Dillon Francis is at the top of the industry. Over two days of listening, I found myself re-playing the track "Love Me Better". I think replaying catchy tracks will often happen with LPs of the house/pop/electronic genre, where at the start you find one you like best and just listen to it on repeat. I liked "Love me Better" because it was catchy, interesting and a little bit less happy than the rest of the LP.
Overall, the listening experience grows on you. An example of the other songs is "Reaching Out", which is emotion-charged with happiness, a bit of a signature song of the LP. I think the LP has good unreleased tracks such as "Over This" - somehow that track is rocking, which inspired me to venture away from the favourites and sample the entire LP. For a change of pace, try "Bad", a fascinating track that features 'feels so good' as a repeating chorus line. Just after "Love me Better" is "In case I fall asleep" which is a fun song. The extra unreleased tracks are bursting with quality, melody and happiness.
For writing this happy LP, Francis tapped into the talent pool of the celebrated songwriters within his LA-based community, who regularly work with the best talent in the pop world. As Francis' most collaborative and pop-leaning project, it features contributions from renowned songwriters today, including Jenna Andrews (BTS, Lily Allen, BENEE), MNEK (Selena Gomez, Little Mix, Julia Michaels), Teddy Geiger (Shawn Mendes, P!nk, John Legend), Sarah Aarons (Zara Larsson, Alessia Cara, Khalid) and more.
Three offerings from Happy Machine shared already are "Unconditional" with British producer 220 KID and Bryn Christopher, "Love Me Better" with Shift K3Y and Marc E. Bassy, which DJ Times called "buoyant house fuelled by a powerful driving rhythm and upbeat melodic ricochets", and more recently "Reaching Out" with Bow Anderson. In addition to the Sugar, Spice and Everything Ice tour in 2022 with Yung Gravy are several other live concerts over the next USA autumn.
Dillon Francis burst on the scene with the first wave of Moombahton in 2010 and has been highly accoladed in ensuing years, going on to headline festivals around the world and completing four consecutive years of a residency in Las Vegas. This was consolidated with a series of successful major label releases, including his 2014 full-length debut Money Sucks, Friends Rule, 2015's This Mixtape Is Fire - which reached #1 on Billboard's Top Dance/Electronic Albums Chart, and his Spanish-language LP, WUT WUT. With interests in a variety of other pursuits, including comedy and fashion, he came out with a scripted comedy series named as Like and Subscribe. He was also in partnership with Funny or Die in 2018 has another show in the works. For 2019, he released the second collection of his ongoing Gerald clothing line with the Australian label Barney Cools.
Conclusively, Happy Machine was a pleasant surprise I really appreciated, and it is capable of selling higher than ever for this producer. I think being a bit happy is a sound idea and this LP achieved this in an impressive and refined manner.
