Singer-songwriters
One trend that looks set to continue in 2007 is the onward march of the singer-songwriter. All those rock groups with their preening frontmen, clashing egos and enormous touring overheads have been eclipsed lately by a myriad of lone troubadours, each with an “authentic” story to tell and a sound almost as minimalist as their start-up budget.
From feisty, go-it-alone heroines like KT Tunstall, Lily Allen and Imogen Heap to more conventional archetypes of romantic introspection such as Richard Hawley, James Morrison and James Blunt, it is every artist for him or herself. Even confirmed team players, such as Thom Yorke, Jarvis Cocker and Brett Anderson, have suddenly started putting out solo albums, while singer-songwriters as diverse as Amy Winehouse and Sandi Thom, Sufjan Stevens and Ben Kweller, or Scott Matthews and Ben Taylor are just the tip of the iceberg.
Why the sudden appeal? In a pop world increasingly saturated with marketing spin and showbiz sham, the singer-songwriter offers the promise of something a little more up close and personal. Instead of music and performances with big, glossy production values you get a more intimate sense of communication by artists who seem comparatively genuine and unvarnished.
They certainly don’t come any more unvarnished than Ray LaMontagne, the key exemplar of this surging new wave of singer-songwriters. Surly, shy and - gasp! - bearded, he could not stand in greater contrast to the self-promoting characters more usually embraced by the modern media/celebrity circus.
“I didn’t think his first album, Trouble, would get the airplay or the attention that it needed,” says Allan Jones, editor of Uncut magazine, who was an early champion of LaMontagne’s. “It seemed deeply unfashionable, with all those 1970s, singer-songwriter influences, even allowing for the success of people like David Gray or Damien Rice. It was difficult to imagine it finding its way to an audience. I imagined it would be an obscure cult album, that a few of us would be writing about in 20 years time as a lost classic.”
Instead, a little more than two years after it was first released, Trouble has sold half a million copies, becoming a word-of-mouth hit that has redefined the popular tastes of its time. Lamontagne’s new album, Till The Sun Turns Black, slated for UK release in the spring, is a much more sophisticated collection, incorporating haunting string arrangements and rich keyboard textures (”It’s definitely not Trouble, Part 2,” Lamontagne insists). But its core appeal remains the heartfelt performance of melodies and lyrics which reflect the emotionally-charged life story of the singer, making it an album which once again satisfies what one biographer has called “the demand for meaningfulness”.
LaMontagne may be hopeless at trading bon mots with talk show hosts, but he is not a man to shy away from solemnly pondering the big issues.
