Sam Sparro - Boombox Eternal (2020)

Appearing only a few weeks prior to the reveal of his eponymous debut record, his second single “Black & Gold” made a lot of noise when it hit the streets in April of 2008. A stormy slice of modish, electronic rhythm & blues flecked with vintage disco flourishes brought instant critical acclaim and commercial fortune to Sparro.

When Sam Sparro landed two weeks after “Black and Gold,” the long player made it crystal clear that Sparro’s muse dwelled somewhere in the elusive space between the past, present and future of pop music. Sparro himself seemingly recognizes his own contradictive nature as a creative force, admitting, “I’m a highly nostalgic person, I’ve always been very inspired by the past. But I’ve always felt like I’m either a little bit ahead or a little bit behind what people are listening to.”

Boombox Eternal certainly isn’t any less ambitious than Sam Sparro or Return To Paradise. Whereas the former fused classic and electro R&B tonalities and the latter acted as a love letter to the feverish peak of disco (circa 1979/1980), Sparro shifts gears on Boombox Eternal to mine new jack swing, digital soul and a wealth of black dance sonics from 1988 through to 1993.

Knowing his way around vintage aestheticism, Sparro forgoes the type of vanity that can sometimes sabotage those who have tried (and failed) to utilize old school methodology in a present-day context. Elaborating further on the construction of Boombox Eternal, Sparro states, “I did so much research about the sound that I was creating in terms of what keyboards and drum machines Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis and Teddy Riley were using (then). I spent a lot of time collecting samples and different sounds from that era and I became very obsessed with sort of recreating it. But what makes Boombox Eternal modern is some of the lyrical content and the production in terms of the mixing and the vocals.”

Boombox Eternal is an eclectic and spectacular tribute to a host of R&B heroes and gods including Guy, Janet Jackson, New Edition, Pebbles, (NPG era) Prince, Karyn White, Mint Condition and more. Sparro mixes all of these influences into a deliciously dense and layered whole that listeners will be compelled to revisit in order catch each reference contained on the LP. Boombox Eternal will inspire much crate digging and leave many in awe of Sparro’s superb attention to detail regarding these artists and their output from this specific epoch. Or, as Sparro says earnestly, “Hopefully, I do them proud and express their influence (in a) dignified (way) and not with plagiarism! It’s a tribute to the architects of the sound, but I hope that I made it my own too.”