Sam Sparro
Return to Paradise
(Island Records)

Electro-pop mastermind Sam Sparro’s new album, Return To Paradise, is no doubt an homage to seventies and eighties pop, funk and R&B. All too impressively, the clunky dance floor romps, catchy spirals of bass and upbeat rhythms are the foundational columns every track relies upon to work, even though the Australian native was born around the same time as the sound he is emulating. “Paradise People” is only missing the air guitar pedal effect or it would fit into that yesteryear genre even more so. With lines such as “We are the paradise people, we are the moon and the stars,” let the daze of the disco era begin, again. Sam Sparro is unapologetic about this and yet it does work sonically, also mostly because of his romantic, lower-register voice that fits beautifully. His woeful sensuality burns through rejection on the jaded pop-rock of “I Wish I Never Met You.” Return to Paradise as an album is super catchy, simplistic, feel-good and is fun. In 2009, Sam Sparro was nominated for a Grammy for the groundbreaking single, “Black and Gold.”