Have you ever had a big dream that never came to fruition? The good news it, you’re definitely not the only one. There are other people who know that crushing feeling and experience. STAND-IN did a great job at capturing this feeling with his latest track ‘Marquee.’ This track tells the story of a girl who runs away to L.A. to achieve her dreams at the age of 18, just to see that life there wasn’t what she expected and then to watch her friend achieve the very dream she was shooting for. It’s crushing and emotional, and it’s amazingly portrayed.
‘Marquee’ is such an emotional and well-crafted track. The guitar provides a catchy hook that pulls the listener in and hits just right, and it has a sort of percussiveness in the lines that it delivered. This actually meshes perfectly with the percussion itself, which is kept fairly minimal. It really gives the guitar a chance to shine as a part of that beat. The synths do a great job at rounding out the sound of the track, attracting interest by dashing in some extra harmony and experimentation. ’Marquee’s vocals are absolutely stunning. They really pop with their somber baritone tone, and they’re delivered with a lot of emotion. It has a bit of an emo slur mixed with a nice breathy rasp. ‘Marquee’ is such a well produced and performed track, and it begs to be played on repeat.
There are so many tracks that perfectly hit the hit the idea of achieving your dreams, but there are a lot less tackling the feelings of the pain and defeat of not achieving those dreams. ‘Marquee’ does the latter petty succinctly. It tells the story of two people move to L.A. One of them “dreamt about her name across the marquee / Said ‘they’ll be lining up just to see me.’” But at the end of the day, she isn’t the one who achieves that dream. As the lyrics put it, “He got his first call early on so she / Looked him in the eyes and said ‘I’m happy for you.’” This creates such an emotional dichotomy around it, because that moment feels so bittersweet. Of course there’s a part of her that was proud of her friend, but there’s also a huge upset feeling that the lyrical tone takes. That was her dream, and it’s the only thing she wanted. But it wasn’t her that got it. Though it isn’t one, it must feel like a sort of betrayal. This would subsequently cause a drift between the two.
Anthony Westlake, musically known as STAND-IN, is a Los-Angeles based artist who got his professional start as a dancer. His musical journey began when he danced on P!NK’s Beautiful Trauma World Tour. During this tour he started teaching himself how to produce and create music. STAND-IN eventually moved on from dancing to focusing on music, and he has plans to drop a new single each month this year, so you’ll have to keep your eye out for those new singles each month.
Written by Sage Plapp
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