Hats off to Bowie and Prince
Sensitive troubadour James Bay toughens up and is doffing his fedora to two legends
JAMES BAY: Electric Light (Virgin EMI) Verdict: Illuminating return ★★★★ ✩ COURTNEY BARNETT: Tell Me How You Really Feel (Marathon Artists) Verdict: Crisp and confessional ★★★★✩
THE past few weeks have witnessed some striking musical revamps. This month alone we have seen London rapper Plan B forsake hip-hop for blueeyed soul and the Arctic Monkeys swap guitars for keyboards on an album of meandering lounge music.
Now James Bay is getting in on the act. The singer-songwriter from Hitchin, Hertfordshire made a huge impact with his 2015 debut Chaos And The Calm, recorded in Nashville and rooted in heartland rock.
His trademark black fedora and flowing locks were hard to avoid, and his Home Counties spin on Americana landed him gigs with Taylor Swift, and two Brit awards. His new album Electric Light reiterates his songwriting skill while broadening his horizons.
The arena-ready choruses remain, but the hat and the long hair have gone and the strummed, acoustic guitars have been usurped by power chords and woozy electronics. Where once he sang about small-town escapism, now the themes are companionship and unity.
Bay made this album in London with Jon Green, a friend who had backed him on piano at his early shows. The songs were then finessed — but not overly — by Adele associate Paul Epworth. Dance producer Jimmy Napes lent a hand in forging a more adventurous sound.
‘I was proud of my first album, as it let the songs do the talking,’ says Bay, now 27. ‘When I was making that, I was listening to Bruce Springsteen and Ryan Adams. But I’m also a fan of Prince and Michael Jackson, and now I’m exercising those musical muscles, too.’
You can hear traces of Prince on Electric Light, although Bay adds that his main touchstone was a quote from David Bowie as the latter turned 50 with a concert at Madison Square Garden in 1997: ‘I don’t know where I’m going to go from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.’
The most surprising moves come on Wild Love, a hazy ballad in the style of rapper Frank Ocean, and Pink Lemonade, a whip-smart guitar workout in the garage-rock tradition of The Strokes. The debt to Prince is obvious in the slinky R&B of Sugar Drunk High. BAY pushes himself as a singer, too, veering from a soulful croon to a falsetto, although his attempts at rapping on In My Head are less convincing. The spoken-word interludes between tracks also disrupt the album’s flow.
But Bay hasn’t wholly abandoned the approach that brought him success. The oldest song here, Just For Tonight, arrived slightly too late to make the cut for his debut — but it wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Chaos And The Calm.
And the excellent Wanderlust, built around a bass riff and guitars that recall Dire Straits, mixes heartland rock and R&B in a single song. James Bay hasn’t forgotten where he started — but he’s no longer just the cat in the hat.
‘TAkE your broken heart and turn it into art,’ sings Courtney Barnett as she opens her second solo album, and the Melbourne singer and guitarist’s skill with candid one-liners is evident throughout Tell Me How You Really Feel.
Barnett, 30, cut her teeth playing in local rock bands and her lean but powerful songs sit on the cusp of grunge and Britpop. Hopefulessness (sic) is a throwback to the quiet-loud template of Nirvana. City Looks Pretty boasts a crisp, Blur-like riff.
Her debt to Nineties rock is reiterated by a cameo from former Pixies bassist kim Deal, but Barnett’s songs are too nuanced to be dismissed as mere pastiche.
Nameless, Faceless is a snide putdown of an anonymous Internet troll that finds her showing sympathy for her quarry: ‘Must be lonely being angry, feeling overlooked.’
She is also honest about her own failings, examining her anxiety on returning home a changed woman after a long tour.
‘I’m not claiming I’m some patron saint,’ she adds on Walkin’ On Eggshells. She is, though, a wonderfully original songwriter with a penchant for the unexpected twist.
BOTH albums are out today. James Bay starts a UK tour at Omeara, London, on May 25 (jamesbay.com). Courtney Barnett starts her tour at the O2 Academy, Leeds, on May 29 (seetickets.com).