Paolo Nutini: Divine Intervention... Or A Slice Of Luck?
Monday, 04 January 2010
Written by David Evans
So, at last we get to see the list of this year’s most popular albums, and if only because it adds some weight to a Rizla-thin theory of mine, I’m delighted to see Paolo Nutini sandwiched between Lily Allen and Robbie Williams … oops, let me rephrase that: hobnobbing with top ten bestsellers. And just in case the young Scotsman of Italian descent gets to read this article, let me go on record as saying that the more I hear of his music, the more impressed I am.
Good. So now there’s no danger of him coming chasing after me brandishing a claymore in one hand and a broken bottle of Chianti Classico in the other, I can safely explain how a review of his latest album bought to mind one of the most over-hyped, over-analysed and underwhelming pop anthems ever written.
When I offered Nige Stereoboard the chance of winning fifty quid for a tenner if he could name the song in question, he shook his head as if Susan Boyle had just asked him if he fancied gettin’ jiggy.
My immediate thought was him being a bit of a Scroogy girlie-bottom, but when it dawned on me that his Keith Richards-like face was down to festive indulgence, I figured he was too young to have suffered almost 40 years of overblown tosh masquerading as an explanation of the convoluted lyrics … and before those of you who were weaned on the phlegm of mid-seventies punk get too excited, don’t expect such generous odds. Even now, I can picture a surge of Syd Vicious look-alikes all jabbing their tenners in my face and spitting out the same two words: American Pie.
Now don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t expect a song that begins as a lament to Buddy Holly to sound like Killdozer’s guitar-thrashing, laugh-a-minute cover version, and as much as I rate the arrangement, Catch 22’s ska-punk rendition would have been a tad more respectful if they’d thought to remove their pork-pie hats.
But setting aside the various musical interpretations; I’ve grown tired of those highfalutin intellectuals spouting on about every Tom, Dick and Buddy who is supposed to be personified in the eight-and-a-half-minute-long dirge: Elvis and The Beatles; okay, no surprise there; but Lenin, Connie Francis and Charles Manson … do me a favour! And if only to silence the yells of ‘bullshit’, the cunning clever-dicks toss the ever-dependable Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac to muddy the already murky waters. (An old drinking-mate of mine could have been reading my mind when he knocked back his eighth Tequila-slammer and announced: ‘Considering they’re all talking through their arses, somebody should roll up all the pages and pages of drivel and shove ‘em where the sun don’t shine, like a giant rectal tampon’ … he didn’t like the song either.)
And as for that chorus line! For the life of me, I can’t think of a more fatuous load of hyperbol-locks than ‘The day the music died’. How stupid is that? Not only is it blatantly false, it’s the kind of poetic claptrap that leads me to wonder whether Don Mclean spent his formative years in some sort of monastic institution where the groundbreaking sounds of the sixties were as welcome as a saucy snap of Peggy Sue posing with a seven-inch sex-toy.
I know this might come across as a trifle presumptuous, but assuming Paolo is a Stereoboard regular, round about now, the poor wee chappie is probably wondering how the hell his name got dragged into this. Well, with apologies to one and all for my tub-thumping, the explanation lies in the music industry’s age-old maxim: ‘One man’s plane crash is another man’s record deal.’
Any pop-historian worth his salt will tell you that the chartered four-seater aircraft which carried Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper to their premature deaths, crash-landed in a cornfield near Clearlake, Ohio. Investigators would later blame extreme weather conditions and pilot error for the disaster.
But even as they were sifting through the wreckage, a fifteen-year-old wannabe by the name of Robert Thomas Velline had already answered a radio station’s call for a local band to fill in for the departed rock stars.
Maybe if he had mentioned that his group, The Shadows, had only been together for 5 days, he wouldn’t have got the gig … and it wouldn’t have mattered a fig if he’d told them that the piano player went under the name of Elston Gunnn (yes, that’s right: three n’s.) Only later would Robert Zimmerman shed the dumb-ass moniker and re-emerge as Bob Dylan.
But as it turned out, inexperience and crackpot names proved no drawback. It would be in bad taste to say that they went down a storm, but they were good enough to attract the attention of a record company … and, hey presto, Bobby Vee was born; and although he would go on to have a string of international hits (and from what I understand, has matured into a nice-enough guy), teeny-bopper songs like Rubber Ball and Run To Him are scant compensation for the loss of the man whose horn-rimmed specs made sure nobody laughed their socks off when Elvis Costello burst onto the scene.
But before you start getting all weepy, let me comfort you with the thought that the big-starmaker-in-the-sky – the celestial Simon Cowell – might have finally realised his mistake. Maybe after almost 50 years (which in heavenly terms is the blink of an eye) he has decided to make amends for selling us short.
You could argue that it’s too early to say if Paolo Nutini is ‘the chosen one’, but there’s something about his constantly improving music that makes me think that those sitting on the lofty perch reserved for superstars had better budge along a bit and make room for a little ‘un.
But that isn’t all; there’s something else that rings of divine intervention … and this will really make you go all goosy: there’s a spooky similarity between the start of Paolo’s career and the aftermath of the1959 tragedy. I can’t imagine the good people at Radio Clyde were thinking the same when they organised a concert in the town of Paisley to celebrate the return of local boy, David Sneddon, fresh from winning the 2002 Fame Academy. And they were probably no more than hacked off when the star of the show was delayed – admittedly, and mercifully, not by a plane crash, but you get where I’m coming from, especially when I tell you that there in the audience was a fifteen-year-old wannabe just itching to strut his stuff. (Yeah, that’s right:15! What did I say about goose bumps, eh?)
As the winner of a time-killing pop quiz, Paolo was given his big chance. Two songs later and he was signed up by the man who would guide him to success.
Now before I go any further, let me make it clear that David Sneddon is not amongst my current top-ten favourites. That’s not to say that he’s short on talent; four self-penned hits and a 2009 song-writing deal with Sony is a testament to his gift for music. But never … never in a month of Sundays would I dream of comparing him to Buddy Holly; that would be as daft as slamming the deuce of clubs on the one-eyed king and shouting ‘snap’.
But when it comes to young Paolo, I cast a knowing wink up to the heavens, grateful that, this time round, we’ve done a damn sight better than Bobby Vee, with or without Bob Dylan in his band.
So what about his latest album? Well, enough has been written about Sunny Side Up to save me burdening you with any more muso-babble. But having said that, I can’t resist an itsy-bitsy mention of the deceptively easy-going Candy, if only because it shows that the Scottish whippersnapper has quickly mastered the art of layering and building a song in much the same way as Fyfe Dangerfield did when The Guillemots were flying high over Sâo Paulo (and if that track isn’t already on your MP3 player …).
But whatever the critics had to say for themselves, the fact that Joe and Josephine public have spoken with their hard-come-by dosh is a tribute to its all-round appeal.
According to my dictionary of trendy street-speak, 'nuff said could be a less vulgar way of sticking two fingers up at those who badmouthed the album at the time of release: people like Caroline Sullevan who, writing in the Guardian, took time off from slobbering over the likes of Chris Martin and Morrissey and described the opening track (10/10) as: ‘Jaunty enough to make you wretch.’ Crikey! I bet she’s a bundle of fun at a Toots & The Maytals revival.
But what makes her smart-arsed tuppen’orth even more laughable is the authenticity injected into the first two tracks by a couple of the most respected names in modern-day reggae and ska. Not only are Rico Rodriguez and Questlove … sorry, Rico Rodriguez MBE, amongst the leading exponents of Afro-American music, they are more in demand than a cut-price ganja roll-up in Brixton High Street.
And then there’s the Observer’s own Graeme Thompson who risked a call from the Race Relations Board (or worse still, a visit from a dodgy-looking Italian geezer carrying a violin case) when he accused the multi-talented Scotsman of re-branding himself as a hybrid mongrel (his word, not mine. Honest!) of John Martin, Otis Redding and Bob Marley.
Myself, I thought there were times when Paolo sounded more like Counting Crows’ lead singer; and while we’re on the subject of megastars: with twenty-plus million record sales to their name, there’s no way of knowing when the unpredictable Californian supergroup will put out a new album, but if and when they do, I’d love to see the look on Mr Thompson’s face should people start saying: ‘Doesn’t Adam Duritz sound like Paolo Nutini?’
Oh, and by the way, if anyone should offer you 5-1 to name the most over-hyped, over-analysed song ever written, don’t for goodness’ sake let on you’re a fan of Stereoboard. Just pull a puzzled face, scratch your head a few times, and who knows? He might be daft enough to up the odds to tens.
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But whatever the critics had to say for themselves, the fact that Joe and Josephine public have spoken with their hard-come-by dosh is a tribute to its all-round appeal.
