Tuesday 2 March 2010

Album: Baby Bird: Ex-Maniac

I've got two confessions to make. One, I only have one other song by Baby Bird, the sublimely heart-breaking Back Together. I saw him doing it on TFI Friday after my heart got broken for the first time and had to clear myself up off the floor afterwards. Secondly, I heard about the new Baby Bird single on Live From Studio Five, where he was hawking his wares on the back of Johnny Depp playing guitar on his album (why?!) Studio Five has weird guests, today they had Sonique, who I once tried to speak to outside a club, but couldn't because my mouth had stopped working. But I digress. From TFI Friday to Live from Studio Five; that's anti-progress.
So why did I never dig up more Baby Bird stuff in the intervening decade? Well, his back catalogue just seemed a little messy and hit and miss, like a Ryan Adams for the 90s. But Unloveable (nod to Moz) his new song just sounded lovely, so I gave the rest of the album a crack.
In the first song he seems to be talking about knife crime and being at school. It's a bit like Brian Molko talking about his algebra test; a little shaky. There is just something inherently likeable about his voice though.
The second song is rather literally called Drug Time and is about... well. Next there's a song about suicide. Ian Wright didn't mention this on Studio Five. It's kind of jangly and bittersweet.
Unloveable comes on like Chasing Cars, in a good way. It's a really striking song; just something about it grabbed me, and it wasn't Johnny Depp. It's just one of those songs that's for you, and you can't explain why, it just is.
Send me back my dreams is a bit nothingy, but the rest of our lives is great, and about love and death, which is what all the best things are made of.
Bastard has quite funny lyrics. Roadside Girl has really romantic lyrics, with no twist in the tale, unless it's about having sex in the back of a van, which I just made up.
The last three songs are a bit plodding, but nothing is really offensive, and that is a compliment for an album as there's normally one that makes you want to smoke crack, like In the Cold Light of the Morning by Placebo on the brilliant Meds.
The whole album has decent tunes that you can sing along to, intelligent lyrics and a nice feel to it. It makes me pine for the days when Idlewild could write a melody. It's summery, but for people who don't like summery stuff. It's certainly the first thing that's interested me in a while.
I am tied to the 90s. There's nothing I can do about it. It's my age.

2 comments:

clixby said...

is this the babybird that did 'You're Gorgeous' ??

lightupvirginmary said...

yeah. that song was pretty overrated.