Music Review: Tovayo shows Tracy Mellon’s star power amid questionable production

Yes, we are reviewing a Tracy Mellon song again.

I know I reviewed a song of hers only last week but she is being marketed pretty aggressively, and the knock on effect is you end looking up the material being trumpeted to see just what the fuss is about.

The fuss is about her new song, Tovayo, which is being promoted with a stylish music video. The video is shot beautifully. No surprises there - it’s shot by Karl Rayson after all, so no surprises there. He goes with warm, soft hues, which work gorgeously. The choreography is basic, and would probably work best on an Instagram reel, but I guess we can let that slide.

 
What we can’t let slide is the sight of the video vixen mimicking playing a violin. Except that is not a violin sound in the background, sir – those are low budget synth strings, possibly from a Yamaha. It’s atrocious that they thought they would get away with that.

You are probably wondering why I am spending too much time sounding like I am reviewing the song’s video instead of the song itself.

I like the song – I think it’s a decent tune, and the harmonies are pretty neat. Tracy can carry a melody, and has the charisma to give it that star quality musical efforts seem to need these days. I do have one problem though, and yes, I know you were expecting this: why the heck is there an auto tune effect applied to Tracy’s vocals in parts on the song?

I am not sure which one it is but it certainly is there, a bit of the song where she sounds synthetized. She obviously doesn’t need auto tune – Tracy has the pipes alright, so the producer probably thought it made the song sound cooler or something? It just makes the song sound suspicious. Like why include it?

Anyway, I may be nitpicking – the song will work, I think, and she has a great team pushing her. Still, that auto tune effect rubbed me the wrong way.