This Dallas Indie Artist Is A Music-Making Machine — Today’s Soft, Breezy Tune Is One Out Of A Collection Of 50 That’s Been In The Works For 5 Years.

Welcome to Song of the Day, where we hip you to all the new local releases you should be caring about. By highlighting one new North Texas-sprung tune every week day, our hope is that you’ll find something new to love about the rich and abundant DFW music scene five days a week.

Sam Cooper — “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”
RIYL: the Elton John/Kiki Dee duet of the same name
What else you should know: Dallas-based Sam Cooper seems like a guy who is sitting on a few hard drives worth of material. That’s not a bad thing, as evidenced by today’s pick for Song of the Day, a tune that is not a cover of the Elton John/Kiki Dee song.

Cooper recently uploaded 50 unreleased tracks recorded from 2016 until this year to his Bandcamp and called it Soft Toys. Some are only over a minute long. Others are over seven minutes. “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” is just right at under four minutes.

This is not the first time he’s given us a couple of buffets of audio food. Back in 2017, he released Magic Bean Mix, which boasts 42 tracks.

The first few tracks on Soft Toys are a playful mix of folk with chip-tune-inspired instrumentals, but by “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” things become more in scope. The tune, a plea to a loved one, is a fully-formed, breezy tune with relaxed vocals, backed by acoustic guitars, horns, keyboards and sparse drumming. It’s proof this guy really knows how to craft a catchy tune.

Cooper definitely likes to put a lot of ideas out there, and doubters could say he needs an editor. But we live in a digital age where you don’t have to listen to everything. We can sample as much or as little as we wish.

Who knows what’s around the corner for this one-man project. More of a song like “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” please.

Header photo via @samcoope on Instagram.

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