22. February 2025
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Media Review

Fancy Hagood – Southern Curiosity

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

Fancy Hagood - Southern Curiosity

Fancy Hagood - Southern Curiosity
4

Rating

 4.0/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Very straight an emotional gay album
  • Nice mixture of genres

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Sometime a bit too much

Touring with Meghan Patrick and Ariana Grande and even recording with them sounds like an established artists. Despite success and good critics, Fancy Hagood has not been able to follow that path and is now releasing country music with blends from other genres. His debut album Southern Curiosity is released as at 9th April 2021.

 

Fancy Hagood – About The Artist

The civil name of Fancy Hagood is Jake Hagood. He was born on 29th March 1991 in Bentonville, Arkansas, part of the metropolitan area in the very Northwest of the state. He is a professional musician since 2015. However, at this time, he was rather doing pop songs and was performing under his alter ego stage name, Who is Fancy. The project has been quite successful. His debut single Goodbye went into the Top 30 of the US Pop charts in 2015. It has some 5.6 million views on YouTube only. He also recorded a song with Ariana Grande and Meghan Trainer, Boys Like You. The song received a golden record in New Zealand. Despite good critics and supporting both artists on their tour, he could not continue on this path.

Since 2020, the openly gay artist is doing country music and changed his artist name to Fancy Hagood. He already released a couple of songs since then. The most succesful song after that re-branding is Don’t Blink, which has some half a million streams on Spotify only and is part of his debut album.

 

Fancy Hagood – Southern Curiosity – Track by Track

The eleven track album lasts 43 minutes.

1. Love Again

The piano ballad comes with a touch of soul and blues. A nice track which is altering between powerful parts and very intimate-sounding ones. The female background voices add a soul-ish touch as well. Promising starter.

2. Don’t Blink

You could open my heart
I could open your mind
Pretend that the stars are the city lights
Could lie on the floor
We could stay there all night
You gotta do wrong if you wanna feel right
Don’t blink or you could miss it
Slow dancin’ in the kitchen
Eyes closed, now we’re kissin’
What a life we’ll be livin’

Don’t Blink is illustrating that the rebranding of the artist to Fancy Hagood is not too long ago – when I was searching for lyrics to this previous release, I still found it under the Who Is Fancy artist name. The echo and the multiplication of voices almost gives a choir feeling in the chorus. Nonetheless, I prefer Love Again – this one is a bit too much here and there to me.

3. Either

Either majorly stays on a very quiet, intimate level. I personally like that style more than the a-bit-of-too-bombastic sound of Don’t Blink. Even though you just can’t have too many of these songs which feel to make a break after every sentence in the lyrics.

4. The Same Thing

The song starts with a duet between Fancy Hagood’s voice and alternating instrumental parts. The chorus feels very pop-alike with a touch of blues, while the verses go back to a very condensed, quiet style. So far, Fancy Hagood manages well delivering the emotions. The song does not feel too kitschy as well.

5. Mr. Atlanta

So, Mr. Atlanta from South Alabama
It’s true that we’ve only just met
No, I don’t know if I love you
But I know that I want to.

Glad that after the rather quiet and intimate songs there is a song with power, a feeling of sunshine. Mr. Atlanta is a lovely love song with a summer touch, which makes you move from the very beginning. Very good one.

6. Forest

When Hagood states I meet you in the forest, it comes with a touch of folk music. A song which perfectly feels to fit to the scenery on the picture of the music video below. Lonely, intimate, just the artist and an acoustic.

7. Another Lover Says

This song, recorded with Audra Mae, comes in the style of a ballad, but also makes me smile and enjoy listening to Fancy Hagood’s love stories. A song which cannot deny a touch of country, but would be called a powerful pop ballad in most countries.

8. Casanova

Sing me a love song, Mister
Tell me I’m beautiful
Hold me in your arms all night long, night long
Take me to bed now, lover,
Take me to outer space
I don’t wanna be right if you’re wrong, you’re wrong.

If there is ever a gay James Bond in the movies and they need a title track, Casanova got it all. I really like that posh style, especially in the quite explicit chorus.

9. Good Man

The Good Man is quite a contrast to the very present and powerful song before. The song is deep, intimate, very emotional. Different, but a good listen.

10. The Answer

To take away some thrill about the story of this song. Unfortunately, Fancy Hagood stated that The Answer is no, I love you so. Don’t listen too close to the song, you might have to take your tissues out as well. That’s a heartbreak song like a tennis smash right at the nuts.

11. Southern Curiosity

It feels to become more and more American music folklore: if you are looking for the title track of an album – either look at the first song … or at the last. Here Southern Curiosity is closing the same-named story. The nuts are still broken, so I appreciate the more positive touch in this track.

 

Fancy Hagood – Southern Curiosity – Spotify

Here is Southern Curiosity on Spotify:

 

Fancy Hagood – Southern Curiosity – My View

Fancy Hagood’s somewhat-like-a-debut-album is an emotional travel. It is very straigtht and honest, you can easily relate to the songs. The more I listen to Southern Curiosity, the more I enjoy it! If you just want to have a first (good) listen, I recomend Casanova or the heartbreaker The Answer.

 

Country Music Interviews on Flyctory.com

Here are all country music related postings in my Spotlight interview section:

 

Singapore – More Postings

Here are all postings which deal with Singapore:

 

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