''Times'' is the debut studio album by English singer-songwriter

SG Lewis SG, Sg or sg may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * SG (song), "SG" (song), a 2021 song by DJ Snake, Ozuna, Lisa, and Megan Thee Stallion * Gibson SG, an electric guitar manufactured by Gibson Guitar Corporation * SG Wannabe, a South Korean ...

. It was released on 19 February 2021 by

Virgin EMI Virgin EMI Records was a British record label owned by the Universal Music Group that was formed in 2013. In June 2020, the label was rebranded as EMI Records, and operates Virgin Records as an imprint of the new EMI Records. History Virgin ...

and

PMR Records PMR Records is an independent record label founded by Ben and Daniel Parmar in 2011. Initially building recognition as a quintessentially British outlet plugged in to local dance/electronic music culture, with a keen awareness of the trajectory ...

. It features guest appearances from

Rhye Rhye is an R&B musical project of Canadian singer Mike Milosh. It originally consisted of him and Danish instrumentalist Robin Hannibal. They released the singles "Open" and "The Fall" online without much detail, which led to speculation abou ...

Lucky Daye David Debrandon Brown (born September 25, 1985), professionally known as Lucky Daye, is an American singer-songwriter from New Orleans. He is signed to Keep Cool Records and RCA Records. He released his first EP, ''I'' on November 9, 2018 and his ...

Nile Rodgers Nile Gregory Rodgers Jr. (born September 19, 1952) is an American musician, record producer and composer. The co-founder of Chic, Rodgers has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 500 million albums and 75 million ...

Frances Frances is a French and English given name of Latin origin. In Latin the meaning of the name Frances is 'from France' or 'free one.' The male version of the name in English is Francis. The original Franciscus, meaning "Frenchman", comes from the ...

Robyn Robin Miriam Carlsson (born 12 June 1979), known as Robyn (), is a Swedish pop singer, songwriter, record producer, and DJ. She arrived on the music scene with her 1995 debut album, ''Robyn Is Here'', which produced two Billboard Hot 100, ''Bil ...

Channel Tres Sheldon Young (born May 26, 1991), known professionally as Channel Tres, is an American rapper, singer and record producer from Compton, California. Tres is best known for his singles "Controller" and "Topdown". Early life Young grew up in sou ...

and

Lastlings Lastlings are an Australian electronic pop band from Gold Coast, Queensland made up of brother and sister duo Amy and Josh Dowdle. They have performed at Coachella, Spilt Milk, Splendour in the Grass, and The Plot. The duo are well known for ...

Background

SG Lewis announced ''Times'' through his

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

accounts on 27 October 2020. With the announcement, he said: Five singles from ''Times'' were released prior to the release of the album; "Chemicals", "Impact", "Feed the Fire", "Time" and "One More".

Composition

''Times'' is a

disco Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric pia ...

album with

dance-pop Dance-pop is a popular music subgenre that originated in the late 1970s to early 1980s. It is generally uptempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable but also suitable for contemporary hit radio. Developing from a ...

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

chillwave Chillwave (originally considered synonymous with glo-fi and hypnagogic pop) is a music microgenre that emerged in the late 2000s. It loosely emulates 1980s electropop while engaging with notions of memory and nostalgia. Common features inclu ...

electropop Electropop is a hybrid music genre combining elements of electronic and pop genres. Writer Hollin Jones has described it as a variant of synth-pop with heavy emphasis on its electronic sound. The genre was developed in the 1980s and saw a re ...

and

funk Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...

influences.

Critical reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalised score out of 100 to critic ratings from publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 75 based on 6 reviews, indicating a "generally favourable" response.

Alexis Petridis Alexis Petridis ( el, Αλέξης Πετρίδης; born 13 September 1971) is a British journalist, head rock and pop critic for the UK newspaper ''The Guardian'', as well as a regular contributor to the magazine '' GQ''. In addition to his mus ...

of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' gave ''Times'' a rating of 4 out of 5 stars, and wrote that "Lewis is really skilled at producing

-infused pop-

" and that his "talent lies in ddingsubtle touches." Writing for ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'', Ben Jolley gave the same rating, describing the album as "an incredibly cohesive collection of slide-across-the-kitchen-floor

bangers that encourage you to hold on to the good times." Dani Blum of ''Pitchfork'' praised the album as a "pristine" one made of "frictionless bangers", but noted that the songs are "so controlled that they never come close to

catharsis Catharsis (from Greek , , meaning "purification" or "cleansing" or "clarification") is the purification and purgation of emotions through dramatic art, or it may be any extreme emotional state that results in renewal and restoration. In its lite ...

Year-end lists

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from

Tidal Tidal is the adjectival form of tide. Tidal may also refer to: * ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple * Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim * TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music * Tidal (servic ...

. Musicians *

– vocals , bass , drums , programming , synthesizer , bass programming , keyboards * Julian Bunetta – drums , strings , synthesizer , programming *

Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs Orlando Tobias Edward Higginbottom (born 7 March 1986), known professionally as Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs (or TEED), is a British electronic music producer, DJ and singer-songwriter based in the United States. Early life Orlando is ...

– piano , drum programming , synthesizer *

– vocals * Matt Johnson – keyboards *

Simon Hale Simon Hale is a British composer, arranger, and keyboardist. Life Hale was born in Birmingham, England in 1964, being dually raised there and in South Manchester before moving to London, where he studied popular music at Goldsmiths College, Uni ...

– string arrangement, strings *

– vocals * Finlay Robson – bass , keyboards * Jay Moon –

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

* John Ryan – bass *

– guitar *

– keyboards , vocals *

Chad Hugo Charles Edward Hugo (born February 24, 1974) is an American record producer, multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter. With close friend Pharrell Williams, he formed the production duo the Neptunes in the early 1990s, with whom he has prod ...

– synthesizer *

– vocals *

– vocals * Joshua Dowdle – drums, synthesizer * Amy Dowdle – vocals Technical * Stuart Hawkes –

mastering engineer A mastering engineer is a person skilled in the practice of taking audio (typically musical content) that has been previously mixed in either the analog or digital domain as mono, stereo, or multichannel formats and preparing it for use in distr ...

* Mike Marsh – mastering engineer *

Matt Colton Matt Colton (born 30 March 1975) is an English mastering engineer and member of the mastering group of the Music Producers Guild. He has mastered recordings for artists such as Muse, Coldplay, James Blake, George Michael, Hot Chip, Gary Num ...

– mastering engineer * Nathan Boddy – mixer , mastering engineer * SG Lewis – mixer ,

recording engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...

Mark "Spike" Stent Mark "Spike" Stent (born 3 August 1965) is an English record producer and mixing engineer who has worked with many international artists including Madonna, Marshmello, U2, Beyoncé, Björk, Depeche Mode, Echo & The Bunnymen, Grimes, Ed Sheeran ...

– mixer * Tristan Hoogland – recording engineer * Ludvig Larsson – recording engineer * Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – recording engineer * Peter Geiser – vocal engineer * Michael Freeman – assistant mixer

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Release history

References

{{Reflist 2021 debut albums SG Lewis albums Albums produced by Chad Hugo Albums produced by Nile Rodgers Albums produced by SG Lewis Albums produced by Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs PMR Records albums Virgin EMI Records albums