Vents Magazine: Claudia Alende Releases "Spotlight"

With an affectionate strut driven by a contemporary, stylish bassline that is as dangerous as it is alluring, aspiring pop/R&B singer/songwriter Claudia Alende comes crashing through the night silence in her sophomore single “Spotlight” and boldly asserts herself as one of the premier new voices in music today. Alende is a fairly fresh face in pop, but she isn’t wasting any time making a name for herself in all the right circles. Her style is uniquely ahead of the curve, melding sensible melodies over sterling hip-hop beats, and although there are a lot of artists striving to create a similar sound, none have captured the essence of this approach as well as she has. And while she deserves a lot of credit for her intrepid, futuristic experimentalism, there’s something incredibly classic about her overall delivery that makes her sound familiar and inviting to even the most rigidly old school R&B fans among us.

Some pop singers, especially ones who are just starting out, are content to make tracks that exclusively accentuate their vocal range, often leaving the intricacies of their music and instrumentation to fall to the wayside. Claudia Alende isn’t one of those pop singers; in “Spotlight,” she presents us with a well-rounded single that doesn’t just showcase how splendidly talented she is with a microphone in her hand, but also how good she is at dancing around a harmony and creating a contrast between the timber of her voice and the depth of the instruments. It’s an exotic arrangement, but it isn’t intimidatingly complicated. The sway is sensuous and heavily propelled by her cautious, almost muted vibrato. I haven’t listened to anyone quite like Claudia Alende, and despite the fact that it would be nice to see other artists taking a cue from her down to earth persona, I like that she stands alone in her own category at the moment. “Spotlight” is quite an aptly titled song; it could end up being the track that brings her the mainstream fame and stardom she’s been so hotly pursuing... READ MORE