Written by ∆³
Nightlife often doses both a delight and desolate contemporaneously. If you were to sit down long enough with any hardcore partygoer, you’d likely hear and see the best of times along with an assortment of a few times you would like to forget. You don’t even have to sit here and read about it; you could actually fray yourself out of that “all work and no play” mentality as you frolic into the night festivities. Whether you find it rewarding or not, you’ll without a doubt experience a truth in it; That life encompasses give and take and explicitly decorates going out at night like the Louvre lights igniting Paris sized skies. Warner Brothers Records’ artist Carlos Vara’s “Confident” makes you feel on top of the world, even if it’s just for a few minutes.
“This song is about a stoned night out in West Hollywood. It was my first time being 21 surrounded by the LA nightlife. I was high out of my mind and trying my best to fake confidence,” says Carlos.
Carlos Vara’s road to both writing and recording “Confident” encircles the odd stricken path that likely propelled him there. He started getting a feel for music in a Pentecostal Church in South Carolina. It was then that Carlos was truly just trying to make sense of OCD and Tourette’s Syndrome. At around age 16, he started using the angst of his insecurities and misunderstandings along with his mother’s keyboard to write songs. Like a lot of artists he posted his music online until he heard from a music producer in Nashville, TN. Knowing that he’d likely have to leave the uncomfortable confines of South Carolina, he bolted for Music City, USA and never looked back. All of that diligence and self determination eventually paid off for Vara, because it afforded him an opportunity to venture to L.A. The rest is sort of history a la Warner Brothers Records style; Carlos Vara’s music can both streamed and visioned on Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube.
“Confident” for some reason elicits an 80’s type of vibe, which is likely because the song is texturally sound designed with true keyboards and drums instead of digitized saturations of them. The 80’s with the first introduction of MTV maneuvered major label spotlighting on instrumentation presentations. They were publicly perceived as a prominent place for artists and bands at that times, and honestly, still are.
Cut to Carlos’ upbringing in church, the idea of instrumentation comes more into play. On his latest release “Confident,” we see a productive edge versus the use of so many digital components of a lot of current danceable Pop hits.
Lyrically, Carlos curates a church of nightlife on “Confident” where he rectifies how all of the partying has elevated him on the outside while sulking him within. Lines like, “Going out tonight, I’m catchin’ everybody’s eye, / Like I’m the s*** but, it’s a lie. / They askin’, ‘how you so confident?’ Then the lyrics, “Higher than my mind, / Lifting these shots up to the sky, / When I get home I’m gonna cry, / They asking, ‘How you so confident?’” just further allude to the idea that what you see on the outside, isn’t always the person that’s on the inside.
“I wrote the song with Busbee, Skylar Stonesteet, & Jason Reeves & I think it’s a perfect reflection of that night. Fun, full of energy, but also a messy emotional rollercoaster.”
“Confident” is not Carlos’s first go when it comes to producing popular releases; Last year Carlos released a well received single in 2018 titled, “Numb“. This is what makes what Carlos is doing here quite celebratory as a musician and as a human being. It’s one thing to put together a good song; it’s another thing to put together your life. If you can do all of that along with sophomorically construing it again, then you’ve really got ‘it’. What’s ‘it’? It’s that swag that elevates you past the pain, hardships, and whatever other odds life may throw at you. In other words, it very likely took true “confidence” to make Carlos Vara’s latest single. I’m not sure about all things, but I’m pretty ‘confident’ about this one.
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