Here at the Send Me Your Ears studio today, we’ve been listening to the latest single from Wild Horse. Cougar was released on January 27th and for fans of 70s funk disco, we urge you to drop everything and make time to listen to this quality track
Cougar is the tale of a lonely housewife who starts using psychedelics and visiting younger men to escape the pain of real life and her failing marriage. Told from the point of view of one of her conquests who sings “like a deer under the headlights I find myself drawn into your life.”
The second this song started playing, we all shouted “Oh Yeah” in unison! This is 70s funk at its absolute best. Coming straight in with full band, Cougar hits you and grabs your attention immediately. Lead vocals are gravelly and twangy and demand attention. They sound earnest and you can clearly hear his accent in places – a feature we love in vocals, and one which shows true authenticity in an artist. There’s a touch of Junior (think Mama Used To Say) in the voice here as well.
Halfway through the first verse, a heavily panned guitar adds in some expertly timed funky rhythms and the song develops beautifully with added instrumentation.
We love the cheeky little whisper before the chorus – it made us smile and love this track even more. The explicit lyric may affect airplay but we imagine Wild Horse have thought of this and created a radio edit as well. They seem like a band who have it all figured out.
We absolutely loved the choir of vocals in the choruses and major kudos to the drummer for some super-fast triplet fills here.
Towards the end, the song breaks down and we’re introduced to guest vocalist, Jalissa Livermore. Her soulful vocals are a fantastic addition to the track and reminded us very much of Christina Aguilera in her seemingly effortless delivery of some punishingly good belted notes on the repeated line, “how sweet the sound.” The breakdown adds in a delicate shaker and some highly creative toms work from the drummer.
Ideas from our ears
An expertly produced track which doesn’t ‘need’ anything. To our ears, perhaps a small cut around 550-600Hz in the vocal track would reduce a slight peak. A single-band compressor on the top 2 octaves with some make up gain would increase the ‘air’ in the track and bring out the ‘zing’ of some of the percussion. As always, these are just some ideas from our ears.
Final Thoughts
All in all this flawless demonstration of 70s disco funk has left us all feeling invigorated and very excited about Wild Horse’s future.