The latest single from Collaborations called “You Gotta Know” is what happens when vintage idealism refuses to die quietly or worse, be reduced to a TikTok aesthetic. It doesn’t just nod wistfully at the ’60s and ’70s. Rather, it drags their sun-dappled optimism, four-part harmonies, and earnest melodies into the present day and sets them loose in a world that’s grown far too comfortable with detachment. The result is something quietly subversive: a song that sounds like it could’ve been played on a car radio during the Summer of Love days but arrives now with the clarity of hindsight and the stubborn insistence that soul, sincerity, and groove still matter.
Influenced by the breezy resilience of The Association, the melodic craft of Carole King, and the golden-hour warmth of America, “You Gotta Know” is music that trusts you to care, and in an era where irony is the default tone and sincerity is treated like a second-hand embarrassment, that trust feels quietly radical. It’s a song that wears its heart not just on its sleeve, but in the chord changes, the vocal phrasing, and the way the groove doesn’t try to impress so much as invite. It’s retro not because it’s trying to look cool, but because that era knew how to mean something, and Collaborations clearly does, too.
Written by Collaborations and Anais Preller, who also handles vocals with disarming poise, the song is less a love letter to the past and more a protest sign painted in watercolor. The lyrics urge action, not from a place of anger but from a deeper, more patient kind of conviction. It’s protest music for people who’ve already done the shouting and are now building something better in the wreckage.
Vic Steffens’ production at Horizon Music Group is gorgeously understated; there’s no artificial gloss here, no digital clutter pretending to be emotion. Everything breathes. You can hear the fingers on the instruments. You can hear rooms. Matt Oestreicher’s contributions adds a cinematic sweep to the track without ever tipping into melodrama. It’s music that knows it doesn’t need to yell to be heard.
The supporting cast is stacked, and that matters. Grammy-winner Scott Spray grounds the track with warm, deliberate bass lines, while Tim DeHuff and Tommy Naggy add the kind of guitar and drum work that knows exactly when to hit hard and when to hang back. Kevin Monroe, Simone Brown, and the Devotion team bring backing vocals that don’t just “support” the lead. Rather, they wrap it in something like reassurance, or maybe resolve.
As a follow-up to the group’s debut album Songs of the Heart, “You Gotta Know” isn’t just a next step; it’s a manifesto hidden inside a mellow groove. It’s the kind of song that dares to be heartfelt in an age where everything is trying to go viral.
Follow Collaborations
About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
