Joe Adragna is an indie pop-rock artist based out of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Here's what others have said about Adragna's music:
Joe Adragna once again has delivered some pop goodness....The new album has plenty of sharp pop craft along the lines of REM jangle and The Beatles, with a touch of Toad The Wet Sprocket. Joe is more than a one man band here, as the opener "Everybody Loves Me (But You)" has much in common with Buffalo Springfield and Brian Wilson. The songs are cleanly produced and well written .... The melodic and mellow tunes do the best here, from "What I Am" to the sunny "Memories" remind me of Stealers Wheel in the baseline. The lower key songs "Sundress" and "What If I Am," touches on adult contemporary pop.... with a soulful vocal and toe tapping chorus and "Hey, Pop Life" brings to mind The Ramones.....
-----Powerpopaholic
.....Adragna might be the next best thing to Marshall Crenshaw in terms of his similar vocal and musical styles. And "Everybody Loves Me (But You)" with its easygoing melodic charm is Exhibit A for this comparison. "Always Last on the Same Route" has enough of a rootsy retro sound to pass for a lost Grip Weeds classic...."Memories" has that 60s rock sound down, and "Hey! Pop Life" is garage goodness (Little Steven needs to hear this one pronto). Adragna has crafted a fine disc of breakup and post-breakup songs in a power pop setting that calls to mind many of the touchstones of the genre.
---Absolute Power Pop
…for power-pop fiends—and hopeless romantics who deal with rejection by rocking out—it will serve well. Adragna’s pop-rock classicism (especially on “This Is What We Are”) skitters eloquently between jangle, garage revivalism and folky alt-pop.
- offBeat Magazine
New Orleans singer/songwriter Joe Adragna is actually a league all on his own, as he writes, produces and plays virtually everything on this…..Whilst Mr.Adragna is clearly a fan of The Beatles, The Monkees and many classic pop influences, but he doesn't allow the influences to become blatant.....subtle, slightly understated melodies, nice harmonies and inventive, economic guitar parts.
-Shindig Magazine
Mr. Adragna finds a newish path through the well-trod fields of pop/rock. He claims influence from REM and The Monkees, and I believe it.
- Ink 19
... a beautifully woven collection of luminous, melodic '60s-style pop
- Gambit Weekly
I once tried to arrange for Joe Adranga to interview Micky Dolenz of the Monkees, and to be honest, I felt a little sorry for Dolenz. Adranga has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Monkees and the panoply of power pop, and I feared I was releasing a guy in Spock ears on an unsuspecting Leonard Nimoy.
Fortunately, Adranga has found the perfect outlet for his pop obsessions in his one-man-band whose songs echo all the usual suspects—the Beatles, Big Star, the Smiths—not through direct reference, but with nascent traits of these bands bubbling up from Adranga’s DNA.
....Adragna, playing and writing all the parts....drops hooks as effortlessly as a pro angler. It’s the deeper waters he explores on this record, however, that reveal Adranga to be more than a sharp-eared pop stylist.
“What if I Am” touches on the universal tenets of love and longing and self-reflection only reachable by pop music. With a few stylistic tugs in any particular direction, the song could become a country tearjerker, a power ballad, a retro tremor from the jangly alternative era, but because of his careful arrangements, the song stays centered in the here and now, the domain of all great pop music.
The interview with Dolenz fell through, and though Adranga may have been left with Monkees arcana unasked, he’s proven that he is fully capable of answering his pop questions all by himself.
--offBeat Magazine
For more information, please visit www.facebook.com/joeadragna or follow on twitter @parlophony
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