Born in the U.K. - Badly Drawn Boy

Track list:

1. Swimming Pool
2. Born in the U.K.
3. Degrees of Separation
4. Welcome to the Overground
5. A Journey From A to B
6. Nothing's Gonna Change Your Mind
7. Promises
8. The Way Things Used to Be
9. Without a Kiss
10. The Long Way Round / Swimming Pool
11. Walk You Home Tonight
12. The Time of Times
13. One Last Dance

Running time: 53 minutes
Released: 2006

As the image to the left suggests, I have the faux-passport edition of this album, an annoyingly sized package that does not fit nicely on my shelves, but does house a second disc (a DVD I've never looked at) and provide a physical object to make still owning the product more of a thing. I got into Badly Drawn Boy after Hour of the Bewilderbeast was Mercury nodded, although I think it may be more correct to say that I got into about 4 tracks, enough for me to have bought more since and not really listen to any of it much. I recognise a few track titles here fondly though, so I don't think it was necessarily that much of a misstep. 

We start with an intro, light piano and a spoken spiel that gives way to an odd little sung song about a swimming pool, for a back garden I guess. It feels longer than its 1 and a half minutes before it gives way to the title track, which interpolates Land of Hope and Glory to start with before becoming a fairly dull and repetitive guitar beat. The vocal is more interesting, and the rhythm of the lyrics is a joy, by far the most interesting thing in the song. I don't much like the final effect because I find the guitar overpowering, and the addition of chimes distracting.

I am finally getting around to another listen, almost 2 weeks after the last. Not quite the first of 2016, but near as damn it on the 14th. I have been a mixture of too busy and distracted by Fallout. Bolt on insufficient sleep, boundary issues and niggling little car tasks and the year hasn't started with me in the best frame of mind. I was all set to waste this evening, too, before a lucky last second goal in Rocket League picked me up, gave me the energy to cook a nice meal and tackle this listen. Degrees of Separation (I had to re-type that four times not to start spearing) is a much more accessible song, more of a melody, a bit of variation in the themes, but it has mostly passed as I bemoaned the beginning of this year. I seem to be sighting almighty alliteration a little tonight. Oh well, smile at the little things, eh? Welcome to the Overground keeps a peppier feel to it, drums and keys meshing nicely. It feels like a feelgood number, uplifting. It also feels... shallow somehow, like there isn't really that much to prop it up. I don't mind that though as it breezes by fast enough.

I get a strange Half Man Half Biscuit feel from the next track, I guess because the lead melody is weirdly whimsical because I lose it fairly quickly as the song progresses, and I find myself getting bored of the little piano loop and a flat-feeling ride. He tries to inject some life here and there, but I find it lacking in heart and, ultimately, in appeal. If that was a low point, we move on to a high. Nothing's Gonna Change Your Mind is the track I remember from this album. It begins as a basic piano ballad, a slightly strained voice over a spare melody. We then get a change up, drums enter and the piano goes from sparse to more energetic. Just a bridge before a return to still fairly ballad-like mode... but its a sign of what is to come. We hit the chorus and there is a gentle, but noticeable impulse and energy to the singing and there is more passion and heart in the next stanza. It never really reaches a proper crescendo, teetering on the edge of bombast, held back, reserved, but hinting at a good idea, a solid heart... its just a very pleasant tune, despite never quite reaching the potential it hints at. I find it fascinating that a tune that disappoints me by not being all it can be nevertheless manages to be a real gem. That gentle energy a loving touch, enough for it to shine. That paragraph is a mess, but seriously - there is just enough promise in the song to help it stand out, even as it fails to deliver on everything it set out.

Gee am I tired. I started this feeling resigned but determined to get back on track. Half way through I am feeling washed out. Part of that might be the uniformity of these tracks. The timbre and tone is generally the same, Gough's voice is slightly one-note and musically the constructions seem to share more than they might. Its all very... wallpapery. Background sound, rather than engaging earworms. Nice rather than good. I think this last one is part of what makes Nothing's Gonna Change Your Mind stand out - its a genuine push towards a great tune, even if it just ends up good. It offers something more than a musical backdrop to some other activity. I am kicking myself, because I seem to have lost a sheet of paper where I had recorded birthdays of extended family. I may be good at some things, but I can't keep birthdays in mind at all, and January is lousy with them. Guess what I am doing this weekend?

These numbers in the heart of the album are longer and it feels it. Not massively so, but enough to notice. I have reached the lower key Without a Kiss. I rather like the chorus of this, where the piano actually shows some development, but the verses basically have a loop accompaniment and it is too obvious to enjoy. An attempt at pattern breaking also doesn't work, the odd jaunty rhythm - a heartbeat effect? - feeling at odds with the overall tone of the song as it becomes more evident. The whole song suffers for it, but it does have the bonus of making the opening of the next track seem pretty darn good. It is light and cheesy - almost muzak like in some senses, the brass has a cheesy, lounging edge to it - and more positive which is welcome. It is still wallpaper music but it is pitched at the right tone for me now. Slightly subdued, but definitely more happy than sad. Until the Swimming Pool reprise, at least. Could do without that.

My mind is definitely starting to wander; I am out of the habit of this and it is proving hard to keep focus. The radio-bland nature of the compositions here probably doesn't help that. The sounds are perfectly enjoyable, but they feel perfunctory and rote rather than played with passion to my ear - mostly because the repetition of the loops is just a little too front and centre. If those loops were slightly weaker and didn't stand out from the backing so clearly I might not have picked up on just how much the songs rely on them. There is nothing wrong with a little repetition, but here the variations are too soft, relegated to the background so, rather than support a tune that weaves around their framework, the repeated hooks become the tracks. The melodies that one would normally follow to break up the cycle are hidden, inaccessible. They are there if you lean in, look for them, but they go missing too easily behind the din.

I am more positive about the final track. Some bum notes here and there it seems, but the cadence of the vocal is back to its best. The drums are still a little too strong for my taste and... actually no. 3 minutes in the structure of this tune has got to me too. I think I have no patience tonight, and my ear seems to be latching onto the worst things in each track. Ugh - I don't like being this negative; I don't think it is wholly deserved. I think I need to give this album another chance, but I am not about to do a repeat listen, so I will settle on leaving the tracks in my library for the time being. Another mess at the start of 2016; they are stacking up.