...second bile-ridden XYZ mag installment.
A great man once said “it’s mostly tha voice that gets you up”. Well, yeah mostly, but for me it’s the guts that get me off. Cos the voice is the just the front end of everything else inside; portal to the truth, access to the soul. Or at least it’s meant to be.
Singers, singers, so many singers, there’s so many songs and so many voices nowadays that it’s easy to lose the plot as a punter. The smoke and mirrors of the industry clouds our judgement as we’re told that Duffy is the new Amy, Amy is the old Adele and Joss Stone is just a fucking joke that killed the Flake ad legacy.
We lurch down this well worn primrose path, all pissed on pop, giggly off Heat, swathe after swathe of singer/songwriters fly past, slapping us in the face with their ‘License to Motown’. All souled out and authentic as a good fuck; nods to Northern Soul, Reggae and Hip Hop are ladled on like varnish on the tarnished and battered hull of pops’ mighty Ark.
See, I have a love for pop music but a passion for soul, not ‘Soul’ as in it’s literal HMV/Virgin (or Zavvi…wtf?) ‘Urban’ category sense. When somebody opens their mouth and you hear that indefinable truth, well, that’s the shit right there.
In the extreme, Will Young singing “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone” is like me singing “I’m black and I’m proud”. Obviously, severe market forces were at work on that one, but equally ironic is Diana Ross singing the greatest ‘coming out’ song ever (ermm…’I’m Coming Out’). So for the same reasons I don’t believe Amy ever went back to black. Amazing voice, great story but a whole load of showing off and tragedy does not a Nina Simone make. Ditto the ‘other lot’, apart from Beth Ditto. Uncut heroine.
Sure enough, everybody’s got make a living and go for theirs, but let’s hold off on handing out the Award for Eternal Greatness when it’s just a fancy lick of Dulux to the career.
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