Grand Hotel

The Explorers Club | Format: MP3 Music

Product Details

• Original Release Date: February 14, 2012
• Release Date: February 14, 2012
• Label: Rock Ridge Music
• Copyright: 2012 Songs Of Benair Churchill & Forever Grand Music (Exclusive License To Rock Ridge Music, Llc)
• Record Company Required Metadata: Music file metadata contains unique purchase identifier. Learn more.
• Total Length: 38:52
• Genres:
  • Rock
• ASIN: B0073ARSRS
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,861 Paid in MP3 Albums (See Top 100 Paid in MP3 Albums)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Pop February 14, 2012

By GlobalChangeSupercenter5

Format:Audio CD

A tour through the bounty of American Pop from the 60s and 70s - a self-contained world of masterful tenor singing, instantly familiar hooks, expert harmonies, and well-mixed playing, featuring scores of could-have been hits from the heyday of pre-corporate American pop, coast to coast.
This is a sophomore hit - okay, on second thought, a stupendous masterpiece of joyous music that should sweep the Grammys, well, the Grammys of 1974, not a slump in any way, though the question remains, at least from afar, on some of the songs where a somewhat more pedestrian singer than Jason Brewer is doing the leads - is this generation's Brian Wilson too shy to command the spotlight enough?
The nods to our pop heroes are many, but so what - reward the boys and buy the album!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars In all fairness, I'm a little biased... but... February 21, 2012

By Marc Nathan

Format:MP3 Music

This album has been in the works for the better part of the last two years. The evolution of "Grand Hotel," involved a multitude of song choices, and then a variety of band members, and finally a world-class mixer to pull it all together. From the opening strains of "Acapulco (Sunrise)" to the horns trumpeting the arrival of the first "radio single," "Run Run Run" and then laced all the way the the haunting close of the bombastic "Open The Door," this album will have you scratching your head more than once as you try to figure out how to reach the tens of thousands of people that you KNOW would fall in love with it if given the chance. Probably skewing a bit older at first, the fan of The Explorers Club has heard, and can reference any number of influences from the 60's and early 70's, including The Association, The Grass Roots, The Turtles, Neil Diamond, Roy Orbison, The Walker Brothers, and of course Burt Bacharach, Jimmy Webb and the great Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. They're all here, in 2012, alive and well, and EC-leader Jason Brewer has nailed the references, and yet made each one his own. While Freedom Wind was polarized, hailed, and occasionally panned as a "Beach Boys rip-off," "Grand Hotel" trumpets originality while allowing you to take your musical trip down memory lane. Yes, I'm a little biased. I am the "executive producer" of this disc, and it's been a labour of love for the past year plus, and I serve as the band's manager (at 4.99 for the album on mp3, my share is... well, you get it... we're almost giving it away to let you get it and share it and turn your friends on to it, and make it so we can all afford to live to see album three from this band...... ) "Grand Hotel," is a grand experience, and I'm proud to be associated, and I urge you to owe it to yourself to get your friends engaged. Check in... now! (Oh, and if you work in advertising, write films or television shows, have a cinematic background, and/or live in the past... you'll find many uses for the music on this record.) Favorite tracks: "Go For You" "Sweet Delights" "Run Run Run" "Weight Of The World" "Open The Door" "Anticipatin" "I've Been Waiting" "Grand Hotel" "Bluebird" and more ;) Read more ›

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Pop perfection March 9, 2012

By Music maven

Format:Audio CD

What a perfectly enjoyable CD this is! Every song is strong, breezy, optimistic, and indelible. I go around singing Run, Run, Run to myself all day. What I find particularly remarkable about the CD is that it doesn't feel like most 60s-styled efforts these days. There's no irony, no lo-fi stumbling, and no slavish imitation on display. These songs, and the playing and production, could easily have come straight off the radio in 1968, but it doesn't feel like a modern band duplicating that sound---it sounds like real thing. The feeling is right, the singing is right, the playing is spot on, and the production is flawless. That's the most impressive thing on display here: the production, arrangements, and songwriting are astonishingly sophisticated and pitch perfect. But in the end, none of that matters at all. The fact is that these are great songs played by great musicians and packaged in a way that brings out their best qualities. Just buy it, put it on, and start smiling. It's snowing as I write this, but these guys make me feel like the sun is shining.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A masterful pastiche of `60s and `70s pop sounds March 11, 2012

By hyperbolium

Format:Audio CD

The Explorers Club's debut, 2008's Freedom Wind, set a very high bar with its unerring evocation of the Beach Boys' most sophisticated period. Incredibly, the band's second effort manages to top their first, with a seamless pastiche of `60s and `70s pop sounds that suggests the band's mastermind, Jason Brewer, is a twenty-first century savant of Brian Wilson, Curt Boettcher, Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach and others. He lovingly mashes riffs, instrumental sounds and melodic structures into confections that will spin the heads of those who once spun the AM dial in search of great pop. He lovingly cops the opening bars of "Up, Up and Away," evokes the "over you" hook of "Goin' Out of My Head," and drops an electric sitar into "Bluebird" that's worthy of Reggie Young's work on "Cry Like a Baby."

You'll hear the rolling rhythms of Glen Campbell, the classical drama of Eric Carmen (as well as the bubblegum of the Raspberries), and spy music that's equal parts Herb Alpert, Ron Grainer and the Ventures. Brewer is a fetching vocalist, with a high end that evokes Carl Wilson's riveting alto, but it's the instant, insistent catchiness of his melodies that immediately hooks your ear. What makes it sticky are sophisticated arrangements that evoke the forward lean of radio's best turn-of-the-70s pop - sounds that strike the ear as both nostalgic and still-new at the same time. It's a dichotomy that suggests these musical styles weren't played out by the time they gave way to whatever was next. The Explorers Club plays as both a brilliantly executed homage and a lively continuation of something that's still full of life. [©2012 hyperbolium dot com]