Monday, August 06, 2007

I really wanted to like the Kate Nash album...

...but I don't. And I'm kinda disappointed in myself, because it's just soooo trendy to dislike her and I wanted to buck the trend.

People compare her to Lily Allen, and in many ways she is like her - they're both from London, they both have the Notting Hill posh-set accent, they both did the whole myspace thing, they both write observational lyrics (which, when you're just turning 20, are inevitably about going out, failed relationships, drinking cheap wine with your friends, and thinking your boyfriend's mates are much fittaaaah).

But if she were like Lily Allen, I'd really like her, cause I love Lily Allen! She's got a great variety of musical influences, she has a sweet voice, and lots of melody. And it's musically that Kate Nash is nowhere near Lily Allen standard. Kate's heard the Regina Spektor album, thought that it's acceptable to make plinky plonky noises with the piano, and chatter over the top, squeaking every now and then for effect. For Regina, it works to sublime effect, but for Kate it just sounds a bit playdays.

The album is repetitive and a bit dull, and doesn't even feature Caroline is a Victim for which she was held in good underground repute before the excellent (and really only Lily-esque track) Foundations moved her into the mainstream. But Foundations is as melodious as the album gets - you can barely notice a chorus in any of the other songs, which you just implore to kick in at some point, but never do. I've owned albums before where you never bother listening past track 6, but this is the first one where I would recommend stopping after track 2.

Bad luck Kate. And sorry for the Lily Allen comparisons, that I expect you hate, but hey ho.

PS - since writing this above, I have discovered the chorus in three more of the songs. But they're not as good as foundations'

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would say that the track 'Mouthwash' is a thing of beauty and that Lily Allen is in fact a wannabe Kate Nash, even though that wouldn't really work in a space-time type way.