When I was first handed the album “Songs for You” by Ray Goren, I had no idea what to think. The three yellow, red and blue dots on the cover reminded me of Rock Band.

Due to not owning a CD player anymore, I looked up each song on Youtube. The first song I listened to was “Those Days” and it had a very gospel feel to it. If that’s what he’s going for, then he definitely accomplished it. This is a cool song to listen to once or twice but I don’t think I would listen to it on an everyday basis. It makes me think that I’m sitting in a church, and people of multiple different races are all clapping their hands together and enjoying the music.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a good song, but I think that it’s very repetitive, and can really use more than one beat going throughout the entire song. This song makes me think of the Disney Channel Original movie called “Let It Shine.”

Next, I looked up “Song For Me”. I’m not exactly sure what genre Goren is going for in this song, but it’s kind of catchy. I’m going to be singing “this is a song for me” in my head for probably a month. I wish he used more lyrics though. It’s so repetitive that it makes me want to just skip to the next song. I’m pretty sure Gorenhas no idea how to really write a song.

The next song is “Light My Fire”. The intro to this song is kind of a gospel feel, but I’m also getting some Jazz. It really doesn’t sound like him. I feel like auto tune is playing a very big role in this song. His voice is deeper than usual, and the lyrics are making very little sense to me. Is this song about sex? Is it about love? I can’t tell.

We have a pretty decent guitar solo in the middle of this song, and then I think a piano solo. I didn’t know piano solo’s were actually a thing. This song just doesn’t make sense to me.

I’m just thinking about Goren sitting next to a fire drinking hot chocolate and trying to figure out what to write about, and his fire goes out and so he asks his mom to relight it so he doesn’t accidentally burn his guitar playing hands.

The second to last song is “Down & Out”, and it’s not on youtube, so clearly it wasn’t good enough for the public to listen to. But, I found a way to listen to it. After finding this really old CD burner, I plugged it into the computer and was set.

I click on “Down & Out”, and it starts out very slow and long, similar to something you’d hear at the beginning of a sappy movie. Then, he starts singing and I wasn’t sure what was going on. I could see this song playing on the radio while someone looks out the window dramatically. I actually like this song. I think he could have change the title to something more sentimental that goes with the song better. I can’t really complain about this song. I actually stopped everything to listen to this. I seriously like this song.

Finally, I click on “It’s On You”, and I instantly get a jazz feeling. This could be on a christmas album, and I haven’t even really listened to the song. This is a decent song, but doesn’t make much sense either. I don’t want to finish this song because it doesn’t make sense. I wish I could say that I like this song, but I don’t. It makes no sense. The lyrics are confusing. I can tell he’s trying to make a storyline in this song, and it’s a terrible story. But don’t worry, you get around 20 seconds of a break from the lyrics to listen to an unidentified instrument. So, all in all, I don’t recommend this album. Goren somehow changes his voice in every single song.