Busy guy, small world

I'd like to briefly sing the praises of two small albums I love, which are quite similar.

One is 

Surf - Roddy Frame, from 2002

The other is

Busy Guy - Stephen Fretwell, from 2021

The superficial links are interesting - both Frame and Fretwell with their alliterative, guitary surnames.

Both had a song uses as theme for a gentle BBC comedy - Frame's 'Small World', from this very album, was the theme to 'Early Doors' (early McAvoy...)

while Fretwell's 'Run' from 2004's 'Magpie' was used as theme to a little BBC3 comedy called 'Gavin and Stacey'. Fretwell has said that, though he was ambivalent about the song being used, it has been invaluable to his finances, akin to having a part-time job.

For Fretwell has not "done well". 'Busy Guy' is not the album of a guy that has done well. Nor did it do well.

Nor, particularly, did 'Surf'. Has Roddy Frame done well? Not sure, relatively speaking. I expect 'Somewhere in My Heart' has kept him in shirts, but considering his faultless voice, his guitar expertise, the fact he wrote 'Oblivious' when he was, like, 18. and that's one of the greatest songs ever written, you might have expected him to be as famous as George Michael, or at least Marti Pellow. Which he's not.

But he is one of the great British songwriters, and 'Surf' is his masterpiece.

'Surf' is a break-up, or post-relationship, album, which is pretty much entirely just Frame and his guitar, set in London. I love that about it. It's got a real sense of place, of Soho and Notting Hill and such like.

The same is true of 'Busy Guy' - it's a post-relationship album, set in London. The songs are exquisite - they have titls like 'Oval' and 'Embankment'.

It feels like there used to be, or ought to be, thousands of these kinds of albums, but there are perishingly few now. Albums by people who are good enough at the basic, all-inclusive art of writing and singing songs that they can hold your attention and your heart for 40 minutes on their own.

The title track on 'Surf' is, in particular, a wonder. I've been listening to it a lot this year. It feels like one of the songs that invented songs. The melody and the lyric just curl around, then soar, then sink, and reach their natural stopping point and break your heart.

Anyway, that's all. Real deal albums, like 'Blue', these are. Get them, if you like sad guys.