Anguish of being a boy-next-door
WE ARE in the age of the boy-next- door pop star, where personable males dominate the airwaves with big voices and blokeish charm. With Ed Sheeran having paved the way for George Ezra and Tom Walker, the latest to make a virtue of being ordinary is Lewis Capaldi.
The Glaswegian, 22, trades on his approachability. A distant relative of Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi (his dad’s second cousin), he still lives with his parents, paid his dues by covering Beatles standards in local pubs and uses Twitter to post cheery everyday updates. ‘In 2019, people just want to like the person they’re listening to,’ he says.
It’s paying off handsomely. This summer, he plays four huge outdoor shows with Sheeran. He’s also announced an arena tour for 2020. And when his big piano ballad, Someone You Loved, spent seven weeks at number one, he reacted with a typical wisecrack: ‘I won’t let it change me . . . you can congratulate me through one of my assistants.’
His self- effacing nature is evident in the title of his first album. The ‘uninspired’ line is from a song he penned about writer’s block which failed to make the final cut, although any fans expecting a barrel of laughs from the tracks that did survive should approach with caution: this is a heartache special every bit as woebegone as Adele’s 21.
LEWIS
has a strong, blue- eyed soul voice and a tendency to emote. He soars to a falsetto on the catchy Someone You Loved and adopts a raspier tone on Bruises, reprised here after originally being issued independently in 2017. No track passes without a big, blustery crescendo.
The mild man of rock rarely deviates from his forlorn, piano- backed blueprint, repeatedly wallowing in selfpity without adding nuance.
On Grace, he wonders whether he is ‘too wounded to ever come down’. Lost On You finds him ‘ a slave to the heartache’. It’s no wonder he’s ‘running near on empty’ by the time we get to the penultimate track Fade. Whatever happened to dancing your blues away?
Maybe he should swap that plangent piano for a strummed guitar more often. When he does so, on the surging Hollywood, he brings welcome light relief to a debut that feels overwrought. It’s far from divinely uninspired, but it is bewilderingly earnest.
YOU could never accuse New York alternative rock quintet The National of lacking enterprise. The group’s eighth album, all 64 minutes of it, is truly collaborative.
It’s accompanied by a short film starring Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander, while frontman Matt Berninger regularly leaves himself on the bench to make space for a striking cast of female guest singers.
With orchestral arrangements by multi-instrumentalist Bryce Dessner, and interludes from the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, it’s a meandering mishmash, but one that casts a subtle spell. The chamber pop of Arcade Fire is an occasional touchstone, though these songs lack the hook- driven power of the Canadian band.
The National’s grand ambitions are evident from the start. You Had Your Soul With You opens the album with two minutes of angular guitar before David Bowie’s former bandmate Gail Ann Dorsey arrives to steer the song in a softer, more tuneful direction.
Dorsey duets with Berninger again on Roman Holiday, while other tracks feature Irish singer Lisa Hannigan, English vocalist Kate Stables, the formidable New Jersey singer Sharon Van Etten and Dessner’s French wife Pauline De Lassus.
On the yearning ballad Not In Kansas, Dorsey, Hannigan and Stables align in harmony. Berninger’s lyrics, delivered in a sonorous croon, are often world-weary, though his downbeat tone is moderated by droll humour.
On Quiet Light, he sings of spirituality and solitude before admitting he loves shopping. Not In Kansas harks back to a lost America of Neil Armstrong and Roberta Flack and waxes nostalgically about R.E.M. and The Strokes.
BOTH albums are out today. Lewis Capaldi plays Perth Concert Hall tomorrow and starts a tour at Ulster Hall, Belfast, on November 22 (lewiscapaldi.com). The National play summer festival shows and start a tour on December 7 at the Brighton Centre (americanmary.com).