2010: Laura Marling - I Speak Because I Can

Is it reductive to ponder if Laura Marling is the new Joni Mitchell, a young woman of the Commonwealth who has gone to California to find fame and fortune, whose enjoyed and endured romances with noted male singer-songwriters of the same scene, who has a voice of startling maturity, learning and presence far beyond her years? We'll see - Blue was Joni Mitchell's fourth album, and Laura Marling hasn't quite managed anything like Blue yet.

There's something so precise and exemplary about Laura Marling's career so far - four albums, all with six syllable titles, all following hot on the heels of the next. All of the albums are strong; this, her second, is my own favourite.

The process of this blog obviously involves me listening to the artists I'm going to write about in the run up to writing, and it's nice when my agenda is changed for me in that process.

I was going to write about how it was seemingly all there for Laura Marling but there was just something missing, something which meant she hadn't quite found 'it' yet, was still not writing great songs or great albums in the way she seemed to be capable.

But, listening to all her albums through the last week, I had a very enjoyable experience. I heard most of the things I'd previously thought she was missing - humour, connection with self, varied instrumentation, abandon, and, above all, and the thing I'd decided her music lacked above all, a few really good tunes.

Which, frankly, gives me a bit less to write about. I was going to work through a few theories about Laura Marling, how her absorption in songwriting tropes and clear obsession with mythology had not yet fully connected to her positioning as confessional writer, how she seemed to struggle for identity, in terms of using varying accents across the albums, how she somehow sounded too composed to truly warm to.

But, like I say, I listened to her four albums, and you can by and large strike all of the above.

But ... perhaps there's something important in the very fact I'd had those thoughts. Laura Marling is a critical darling, who gets reams and reams of (broadsheet) press coverage but sadly, here are a few young female singers who are more successful than here - Adele, Duffy, Paloma Faith, Lily Allen, Laura Mvula, Corinne Bailey Rae, Ellie Goulding, Katie Melua, Emeli Sande, Pixie Lott, Florence Welch, Gabrielle Aplin .... it goes on. And yes, it's apples and pears, but it's not like there's anything per se about her which couldn't be a mainstream album-selling artist. Maybe it's a good thing, but maybe it would be great if there was one song, one big song, which made the people who only buy three albums a year pay attention.

'I Speak Because I Can' probably contains the songs closest to that. I saw her playing two or three times around the release of this album and  she was great, seemed to be growing in confidence every time, and one or two of the songs seemed like real showstoppers.

'Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)' is perhaps the most obviously pleasing, and then there's the dark menace of 'Alpha Shallows' and 'Hope in the Water', the splendid title track and the rollicking 'Rambling Man'. This album was a big leap from her debut 'Alas I Cannot Swim' which, though precocious, came from the personality of a teenage Englander, while this album was steeped in a higher level of learning and storytelling. I'm not sure there's been a big leap forward since then, though her music has certainly become more and more American. Perhaps once she gets settled in that US setting, there'll be the event album she is almost certainly capable of.

My selection from the best of Marling would be

Alpha Shallows
Sophia
New Romantic
The Beast
Goodbye to England (Covered in Snow)
Once
Blackberry Stone
Rambling Man
Blues Run the Game (cover)
My Manic and I
All My Rage
Hope in the Air
I Speak Because I Can
Saved These Words