iFeature | FRANKIE GRANDE The "Rock Bottom" Experience

A Pop Music Feature

Just in time for PRIDE Season, the multi-faceted performer, Frankie Grande, invites fans into HOTEL ROCK BOTTOM for a sneak peek listening experience to debut tracks from his new album.

Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, is, at present, the epicenter of LGBTQ+ culture and cultivation in the city that is struggling to maintain its heartbeat amidst a bigoted culture war that is plaguing the United States. It’s PRIDE season, whether this tyrannical administration and its Orange Ogre who have invaded our White House, want to acknowledge it or not, and here in the City that Never Sleeps, the EKG readings are rising! Hell’s Kitchen and the Theatre District still boast the most gay bars and LGBTQ+-friendly establishments, dating back to the early 2000s, when the migration from Chelsea, the nerve center of gay nightlife, began.

VERS NYC hosted the album listening event.

At VERS, one of the venerated areas’ hot spots, serving signature cocktails and upscale barroom bites to its predominantly 20-somethings and multifaceted patrons, on a sultry Monday night, Happy Hour just got hotter. Frankie Grande is in the house, and everyone inside is eager to bask in his stardust. The Broadway baby, actor, singer, dancer, TV host, reality show contestant, and Ariana’s Big Brother, arrived at the establishment as the monitors played his latest music video “Rhythm of Love” and Grande danced along to the choreography, the occasion was a momentous one, as everyone in attendance was here to get a sneak peek at the pop provocateur’s debut album HOTEL ROCK BOTTOM.

Released on Casablanca Records, effectively taking advantage of the PRIDE season with an appropriately positioned street date of Friday, June 27th, Grande has been touring with music from the album since the March launch of “Rhythm of Love” and snapping conservative necks with the extra-steamy second single “Boys.” Autobiographical in nature, Frankie Grande credits the album with catapulting him to where he is today, after literally hitting rock bottom and embracing his sobriety. The setlist is in chronological order, as the performer himself admitted, he likes telling stories.

Welcome to the Hotel…

His sobriety journey has given Frankie Grande the insight he felt that had been lacking in his life, an insight that has given him the incentive to tell the story through the medium of song and dance. “When you become sober, you go through a mourning of your ‘old self,” the artist revealed, speaking to drag queen legend and Grande partner in crime, Salina EsTitties. “A lot of the album is about that journey. Hitting rock bottom and then picking myself, literally, back up.” The audience listened carefully as Grande played the title track, “Hotel Rock Bottom,” for them. It starts as a ballad before ramping up the tempo. It was important for Grande to have a track on the album that captured that moment, the moment when he hit rock bottom and knew what was at stake.

“I’m a storyteller,” Grande admits, the setlist reflects in somewhat of a logical order his arrival at his sobriety. At 42, he reveals that the journey was stacked with bumps, and he was unabashedly honest to the room, which included his mom that there were some choices “Everything that I have in life today, is a gift of my sobriety, and when I sat down to write this album I had so much to draw from.” The album’s title is very much reflective of a place he thought he might never get out of, as the track “Sex Shop” might suggest. “That track — I’m definitely not sober.” The full-on Ki-Ki of the track’s rhythm marks it as one of the album’s club thumpers, which is likely to get appropriated as an anthem of the underground scene. “I’m looking forward to unveiling it in the German club scene,” Grande said.

Frankie Grande celebrates PRIDE and his debut album release.

The album’s lead singles are precisely what you’d expect and capitalize on Frankie Grande as a gay pop idol, with their thumping synths and basslines. Both tracks will inspire club remixes and make the relentless lineup of the summer circuit season. Then there are more introspective tracks on the album like “Oasis,” which is a love song, and more accurately, Grande’s love for his husband. What makes this song stand out from the pack is Grande’s vocals, which are on full display. Pop music, especially overly produced dance confections, doesn’t often require the artist to perform outside of their head voice, but on this track, Grande shows up and reveals those Broadway chops, and Rock-inspired depths that will likely propel that track on the charts.

Hotel Rock Bottom is an honest appraisal of Frankie Grande as a performer, and without the acceptance of his sobriety, it probably wouldn’t have been made. “It made sense to title this album Hotel Rock Bottom because everything else on the album wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t decided to check out of that motherf*cking hotel, go straight to rehab, get sober, and ten years later, write the song.” Perhaps not entirely radio-friendly, this album feels much more personal to Grande, giving him the avenue to vent and shed the skin of his past; much is revealed in the spacey club-banger “Cognitive Dissonance.” It does evoke the sense that this is the launching point for something yet to come, and if it took Frankie Grande hitting the bottom to get here, he’s off to a great start.

Here is your #FanzEyeView of the new video “Boys” from Frankie Grande’s upcoming album Hotel Rock Bottom:

A special thank you to VERS NYC, located at 714 9th Avenue, New York, for hosting the evening and sharing Frankie Grande’s Hotel Rock Bottom Music Listening Experience.

HOTEL ROCK BOTTOM  | by FRANKIE GRANDE | is available now for pre-order in a special vinyl edition release and as a digital download on iTunes. Visit frankiegrande.com and Go Grande and Go Home with official merch.

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