Slow dancing at the sock hop, sitting on your best friend’s porch in the summertime, and cruising down the road in a ‘57 Chevy Bel Air. This is what listening to Stephen Sanchez’s music feels like.
I lean back in my chair and close my eyes, crossing my arms. I’m lost in the music, wishing for a time when everybody sang like that. He has a mellow tone to his voice, and the melody is soothing.
I could be seated at my desk clacking away on the keyboard. I have assignments due and places to be, but still, I sit and listen. His music isn’t aggressive or loud. Instead, it pulls us back in time to a sort of vintage haze.
The 20-year-old musician flaunts black leather jackets and Elvis-style hair. In his music videos, he drives classic cars with Marilyn Monroe look-alikes in the front seat. He is a classic living in the 21st century.
The primary music video in question was for Sanchez’s song, “Until I Found You,” released on Sept. 1, 2021. The song was the lead single on his sophomore album “Easy on My Eyes” and rocketed him to fame.
While first listening to the song I thought, “If this song was a movie, it would deserve to be filmed in black and white and projected on the big screen.”
After watching the music video, I could see that Sanchez agreed. In it, the Monroe look-alike is singing into an old-time microphone. We see Sanchez lounging in his convertible, fully decked out in his Grease-esque style. The mood reminds me of an old Elvis movie — and Sanchez’s fans love it. It seems like the age-old biker persona still works. It’s old, sure, but it’s a classic for a reason.
Considering this, I am surprised to realize that Sanchez’s fans are young.
Kids scrolling through TikTok and Instagram are Sanchez’s main supporters, and they are the ones who have pushed him to the 80th most-listened-to artist on Spotify (there are millions of artists on Spotify).
His listeners are not the elderly grandmother who went to the Jerry Lee Lewis concert as a girl or the middle-aged woman who hums along to Dean Martin in her kitchen. Instead, it’s the younger generation who has picked up Sanchez’s music and made it the stuff of Friday night drives and hanging out in their friends’ basements. The kids love it.
As I sat there listening to Sanchez croon through my keyboard speakers, I had to ask myself, “Why is it that people like this so much? What is it about ‘the good ole’ days’ that makes kids want to seek it out?”
People long for the past and for a time when, to our modern eye, things were simpler. Sanchez transports us to that place; he cures our feelings of nostalgia and reminiscence and shows us an alternative ambiance compared to some modern music that can sometimes just be classified as simply noise. His music hits home.
Part of what makes it have such an effect on its audience is that “Until I Found You” is not a song with overly deep, difficult lyrics. The song is just about steadily loving someone. One line says, “I would never fall unless it’s you I fall into.” Simple, understated, but made powerful and sweet through the music that is backing it up.
This is the theme of the album. The music drives the emotions in the songs and the lyrics take a back seat to make way for that.
Somehow, Sanchez makes this theme work. I find myself humming to his songs as I go about my day. The lyrics are still in the back of my mind, but the classic tune is what I remember. For instance, the line, “Pulled me in, I asked to/Love her,” has been on repeat in my head. I’m sure that line has been used before, but it’s the way that Sanchez presents it that makes it work so well. It’s not complicated, but the tune makes it stick.
As people, we have a constant hope for the future. We prepare for it and work hard to secure it. The past, though, is something we long for. It is time that we can never get back.
We tend to see “the good ole’ days” through rose-colored glasses, and when we look back at moments like the 50’s, we want to be there in that moment seeing Sanchez perform alongside Elvis or Dean Martin.
The songwriter paints a picture for us. He creates a scene of the ideal version of the 50s. We see that snapshot and want to live in that frozen moment. Through Sanchez’s music we get to live simply and carefree in a time when we are cruising in a ‘57 Bel Air or slow dancing at the sock hop listening to Stephen Sanchez sing about steady love with his vintage, classic melody.
