A vs B: Part 6 - David Gray vs James Blunt

Aah, the big two. Titans of terrible, behemoths of banal. Or are they?

Oh, yeah, pretty much, maybe, not really.

People ask has there even been anyone like Ed Sheeran before? No, there hasn’t. Not one-man-and-a-guitar with the sheer ubiquity. But these are the antecedents. Both had monster albums which were the bestselling in the UK in a year, both endured the utter loathing of serious music fans/snobs. The loathing was often personal.

They’re also really good examples of where “the line” is. People not tied up with the precise details of being a “serious” music fan might be bemused at what makes e.g. Badly Drawn Boy ok and these two not ok.

I mean, some people just hate this shit. Hate these well-bred sensitive singer-songwriters bearing their soul. But, actually, not me.

This is, or was, my territory. From Dylan on to Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake, I was always searching for the next “mystery white boy” (as Buckley joked about himself). I was a fan of Ryan Adams, Ed Harcourt, Tom McRae, David Kitt, even Damien Rice. I went to see Damien Rice … twice! It was nice. I was primed for Gray and Blunt … (what wonderful names they had ...)

I had significantly strong reactions against both Gray and Blunt at the time, but retrospectively think they’re rather different cases.

Gray was just a pro who did songs – he’d done a few albums, then got massively successful suddenly in Ireland. He remixed a single and did an appearance on ‘Jools Holland’ where he wobbled his head.

People started using the term “coffee table music” or “dinner party music” and I remember I did hear his album White Ladder at a dinner party where I felt out of place, and people were discussing his music in a really dull way and I was young enough to think I was better than all that. And, you know, I was particularly susceptible to the music press then, and they were generally dismissive.

I hadn’t listened to the album all the way through since (though I’ve listened willingly to individual David Gray songs a few times since then). I didn’t think I’d need to listen to them both to write this, but I was a little intrigued. I also listened to a couple of other singer-songwriter albums of the early 2000s which I’m going to thrown into the mix, as I think they’re relevant to my reactions.

‘White Ladder’ is quite a nice album – there are decent songs and it’s got a pleasantly consistent mood. I didn’t cringe, or feel hateful, I realised it’s roughly in my sphere and generally my previous antipathy was a bit of snobbery. Above all, it’s highly competent. Occasionally gently funny and sometimes quite poignant, it has, in retrospect, an undeniable crepuscular charm.

I listened to James Blunt’s ‘Back to Bedlam’, the bestselling UK album of the first decade of the millennium, for the first time all the way through yesterday.

Here are my notes on James Blunt – I happened to see him as a support act at the Borderline in summer 2004 - I didn’t really notice him, I was talking at the back, I remember he had a big backing band for a support act at the Borderline.

The publicity photos for the album showed him on the platform at Clapham Common tube, where I lived at the time. I liked that. He lived on Fulham Palace Road, and in his interviews talked about hanging out in the grotty nightclub by Putney Station. I liked that. People I knew were fans of his. Someone on my PGCE lived near him, saw him around, went to his gigs, said they were great, said he was really nice.

This much seems indisputable. The personal abuse he got seemed a bit rotten. He is now reborn as a self-mocking twitter star with triffic bantz. He’s clearly also someone with a range of talents.

But those songs, that album, that made him a star, they really are as awful as anything you could ever listen to. It’s not snobbery, or assumption, or prejudice. 

Some people berated his background, but I don't mind posh singer-songwriters, far from it. My favourite British singer-songwriter of the era, Ed Harcourt, was as well-to-do as they come.

I remember when he played ‘Goodbye My Lover’ on Jools Holland, my blood froze with embarrassment for him. I felt like an avuncular northern gentleman like Jim Carter ought to have come over to him halfway through and tapped him on the shoulder and said “all right, lad, that’s enough”, “but, sir, let me finish my song” “nay, lad, you did grand, but let’s stop it there, shall we?” …

It didn’t belong there, among “real musicians” with basic standards of how to string words together and not over-emote and not try too hard and not do the most obvious thing imaginable.

I listened to it on the train to London this week and my blood froze again. I really think it’s the worst song ever.

Worse than ‘You’re Beautiful’ and ‘Wise Men’ which are probably on the same terrain of terrible.

How did it happen? How did people fall for it? What is it? Well, I imagine he managed to give good enough banter at gigs that people forgot to listen to the songs … or something … or it sounded just enough like stuff that was good, that made the heartstrings of the cynical melt – it sounded enough like it and took it to another level.

Like I say, my tastes, aren’t/weren’t cool. I’m not above that stuff – that started with Jeff Buckley’s ‘Hallelujah’, the absolute mothership of it all, taking in Gray and Coldplay and Keane, even Radiohead at times, talents like Tom McRae and Ed Harcourt, and Damien Rice, who I’ve realised may be the key to this tale.

Rice, with his coffee-table breakout crossover slowburn hit album ‘O’, Rice who’s been bracketed with Gray and Blunt and Jamie Cullum and whoever else.

I saw Rice twice – I thought ‘O’ was really a great album. The second time I went was pretty sour – he was sour, the crowd booed the opera singer (one of the oddest moments I’ve ever known at a gig, which I’ll get to), I went off Rice and have hardly listened to him for more than a decade. But I listened to ‘O’ again this week for research and, you know, it is fantastic.

It’s a tense, fearsome, deeply and realistically romantic and dramatic piece of work, with a narrative and a sense of mystery. The singing by Rice and his co-star Lisa Hannigan is so good – they really are the best pair of co-vocalists since Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. He has range, but above all, he uses the dynamics of his voice brilliantly, as does she.

Of course, it appears that the tale soured with the real-life relationship of the two, resulting in him sacking her in 2007. People booed the opera singer at that second gig because, essentially, they loved Lisa Hannigan so much and didn’t want to hear another singer – I know, fucking mental!. One can only guess there was all kind of professional insecurity and jealousy going on … who knows …

But, anyway, I’d gone off Rice when Blunt came along, but I still had the memory of how good Rice was, and that Blunt, this ersatz version, was an insult to the singer-songwriter genre. I think I’ve only just unpicked that properly now.

I also wonder if Blunt rather killed the genre … the way his shtick was polished, the songs were written by committee, he was marketed in quite a pop way, it showed the moneymen what could be done, and from that point we had a series of reasonably talented but clearly controlled crossover stars like James Morrison, Nutini, George Ezra and of course the infernal Sheeran. I don’t know, this really make sense, it’s just a feeling. Blunt killed a genre I loved for me, anyway.

So there’s your answer. Who’s better? Damien Rice and Ed Harcourt, I guess.