Review: "Friends" - Joel Marques

Artist Joel Marques packs a punch with his single “Friends”, showing the newly ignited reaction to the dark side of close connections that many can unfortunately relate to. Marques tells the story of a close friendship(s) with a person and/or group of people that has left him feeling wronged. While he channels an energy that is raw, disgruntled, and powerful, he receives the same from the opposing side of this past friendship – just in a different way. While they stay persistent and strong in their push for a friendship, Marques’ lyrics and tone follow as the story accelerates & unfolds. “Friends” perfectly channels the frustration, confusion, and loss of connection felt while going through the dissolvement of a friendship(s), and how it’s acceptable to feel many things at once while going through an event like this. This song cleverly showcases Marques’ ability to create a song that’s emotionally & lyrically complex with a well-rounded, inviting pop sound. Instead of letting negative emotions overshadow the novelty of “Friends”, Marques uses the situation to his advantage to create a song that artistically blends elements of pop with his imagination and personal world.

One of the many things that stuck out to me while listening to “Friends” was the way that Marques could easily mix qualities of differing genres to showcase a song that could “typically” fall under a single category. With the level of angst and hurt embedded into “Friends”, I would assume that normally people would try to classify this song within the world of pop-punk music. While “Friends” contains traits of pop-punk, Marques’ unique voice emits a flair to the song that sets it apart from falling into a strict classification. Qualities of both country and hard rock specifically stuck out to me through Marques’ voice and choice of descriptive words within his lyrics, signaling to me his proven ability to take on the world of pop music. Through Marques’ direct, descriptive lyrics and powerful, genre-bending voice, it is evident that this friendship(s) has been stained and will never return to how it originally was. Though the length and depth of this friendship is not necessarily clear, listeners can easily interpret from Marques’ strong artistic ability that the situation has greatly impacted him and is going to eventually open doors that will be healthy for and ultimately serve him. “Friends” may contain discussion of emotions and actions that don’t necessarily bring comfort, but there’s no denying that it’s both quality pop music as well as a story that almost anyone can find themselves within.

Joel Marques is a singer/songwriter based in Luxembourg. Beginning his musical during childhood, Marques quickly discovered that he wanted to make music that could transcend time and resonate with people worldwide. With exposure to varying musical genres at an early age and formal training at the Conservatoire de Musique in Esch, his artistic expression is filled with diversity and uniqueness. Kickstarting his music career in 2022, Marques began performing live at restaurants, bars, etc. This led him to take part in the 13^th season of ‘The Voice of Germany’ in 2023, where he went on to the semi-final. Following this success and experience with ‘The Voice of Germany’, he participated in Luxembourg’s Song Contest for Luxembourg’s representative at Eurovision Song Contest 2024, bringing him more exposure and encouragement to explore his music. Now, Marques is focusing on his music in a way like never before – allowing the transformative nature of experiences like his participation in the Luxembourg Song Contest to inspire him and lead to composure & creation of his own music in place of performing covers.

Written By Madison Spies

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