Album Anniversary: Funk Wav Bounces, Vol 1 | Calvin Harris
6 year anniversary of our favorite summer album.
6 years ago, Calvin Harris took to Twitter to write:
“In 2017 I’m making music to make your soul happy !!!! Not feel good music. Feel INCREDIBLE music”.
…and he did exactly that. In the years since, a lot has happened (the entire career of Alessia Cara, 6 Drake Projects, 8 from Taylor Swift, 0 from Frank Ocean albums, and a Vol 2 of this collection) yet Funk Wav Bounces, Vol 1 continues to land in our rotation. For us, Funk Wav has served as the soundtrack to our adolescence and a project we just can’t let go of. It’s only appropriate for us, on the 6-year anniversary (June 30th) to look back and celebrate this incredible moment in music.
While we didn’t know it at the time, Funk Wav. Vol 1, set the standard for what sunset car rides in the heat of summer sound like. Utilizing funky basslines, vintage keyboards, and 80s synths, Calvin produces a culmination of everything we loved about music in the 2010s. Harris’s portfolio of Pop/EDM smash hits played a major role in defining the era with tracks like Feel So Close & Summer, as well as his work with Rihanna on Where Have You Been, We Found Love & This Is What You Came For. Funk Wav contains strong pop contributions from artists that dominated the early 2010s; Katy Perry, John Legend, Frank Ocean, and Nicki Minaj to name a few. However, the 2010s were also heavily defined by the emerging trap sound in hip-hop. Artists like Future, Travis Scott, and Migos began to control the charts, defining a genre of hip-hop that would dominate the rest of the decade. Harris brilliantly combines these two decade-defining genres to bring us Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1.
Part of why this record is noteworthy comes from how left-field the collaborations are. I had little confidence that a track boasting both Frank Ocean & Migos would allow for both acts to flourish, and yet the verses that were delivered, top their respective discographies. With so many collaborations, this album easily contains one of the most star-studded guest lists of the 21st century. Since this record dropped 6 years to the day in 2017, the featured artists here have churned out 59 Top 10 hits (See below for an in-depth visual of the 129 hits in total from all these artists spanning their entire careers).
Last year, Harris followed up with Vol 2. We’ll plead the fifth on our opinion on that one for now.
Check out our favorite tracks, listen to the album, and see our scores below:
Can’t Miss: Slide, Feels, Heatstroke, and Cash Out
You Can Skip: Nothing!
BY THE NUMBERS
Bennett’s Score: 8.2
Carson’s Score: 8.4
Album Score: 16.5
Average Track Score: 8.3
Slide received a perfect score. It’s the first song to receive an 11/10 score from both of us.
Notes from Bennett:
There’s a reason Slide is in everyone’s summer playlist. There isn’t a thing about this song that hasn’t aged like wine. I love the opening chords, Franks vocals, the synth melody, Quavo & Offset providing their best feature of all time, all of it. I’m confident that Slide continues to hop into listeners’ playlists whenever the sun comes out.
I’ve been a big fan of Cash Out recently because of its aid from DRAM (You may know him from Broccoli feat. Lil Yachty). It makes me happy that DRAM gets to shine in his element on this album, I personally think he’s one the most underrated voices in R&B.
Rollin Is a close second for me with Slide. I’ve actually enjoyed this song more as it’s aged than on release.
I also want to highlight the appearances from Young Thug, Travis Scott, Takeoff, Pharrell & Katy Perry as being as perfect as they are. How on earth does Calvin manage to get these artists’ best features?!?
Notes from Carson:
Slide is my all-time most-played song. It just makes me so happy and brings me so much joy as it was the song that defined my summer the year I graduated high school. Calvin somehow figuring out how to make Frank Ocean and Migos work together is *chefs kiss* beautiful. I have so many fond memories associated with this song.
My favorite Big Sean verse ever is on Feels. His playful delivery and clever lyrics make this such a fun build-up to his section. “Do you like getting paid or getting paid attention?…cut off all my exes for you x and o’s…came through in the clutch like lipstick and pearls.”
I remember where I was when Heatstroke was announced. I was in econ class and I remember Calvin posting that this was coming out and I was shook. In what world would Ariana x Pharrell x Young Thug get in the studio together AND it works really well.
Faking It was my introduction to Kehlani and the pepperoni pizza line from Yachty still makes me cringe but I really enjoy her delivery of this song.