I always imagined time travel would be more like a dream – just a little different than you remember, just a little slower than real time. Travel with me back to 2001. Napster gets shut down. Alicia Keys spends six weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 with Fallin’. Oh, and the first iPod is released.
Fallin’ is just one of those tracks you never forget. It’s just the right amount of all the right ingredients – soul, rhythm and truth. But then we add in a little starRo, and he hits it just right. He flys in with this helicopter-esque syncopation but maintains this downtempo groove that builds in intensity and complexity. The beat pauses only to accentuate Keys’ most vulnerable vocal moments, killing it mainly at 2:15.
starRo is Shinya Mizoguchi in real time and real life, but his music is this escape into an alternate reality. It doesn’t really matter where or what it is. Just know that it exists.