What’s happened to the youth of today? If they’re not confessing their innermost thoughts on record, they’re embarrassing themselves on X-Factor searching for a quick way to the top of the charts and fame everlasting.
From the current slew of young, indie artists taking their cue from hip-hop and punk to explicitly recount tales of personal experience comes Jamie T’s latest offering. With no messages hidden amidst a murky quagmire of metaphor or synonym, the homogeneous generation of Esser, Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, Jack Penate et al seek to exploit their personal development by riding on the back of ‘classic’ sounds while castigating and cashing-in on situations and dreams, shattered or otherwise.
With Dizzee Rascal topping the charts with his fun, faux raps, it would certainly seem that the single-buying public don’t always want to hear about crap shags, running from the law, or broken hearts. Nevertheless, Jamie T, with a voice that sounds like a grown-up Pete Doherty combined with a bit of Billy Bragg, has produced an album that, in terms of originality, has more on offer than many of his contemporaries.
Using tools comparable to those that littered his debut album, (Mercury Prize nominated Panic Prevention), Kings and Queens is similarly scatterbrained in both conception and construction. Never settling on one style, Jamie’s dark side provides menacing production throughout, tying this litany of songs together.
Sticks and Stones is easily the catchiest track here, with its bright chorus hook, “When there’s no-one left to fight, Boys like him dont shine so bright, Soon as I see the dust settle, He’s out on the town tryin’ to find trouble.” Similarly the curiously named Chaka Demus has a chorus that plays out like an old Motown song. It’s no test to imagine Amy Winehouse (or temporary stand-in, Paloma Faith) re-interpreting it at a festival and replacing the original with their version deep in the public consciousness whilst making millions from it.
Musically, the album generally gains in strength as the album progresses. Starting with the sparse, clanking electronica of 368, the guitar-led Hocus Pocus follows (sounding like the Arctic Monkeys used to); but the apex is visible on Castro Dies and the ’80s inspired Earth, Wind and Fire. Two acoustic tracks (Emily’s Heart and Jilly Armeen) allow Jamie to promote himself as a busking poet, and represents a facet hitherto invisible.
Kings and Queens showcases Jamie T’s affinity for chanted, football-terrace melody and a voracious appetite for rap, but the record is simultaneously let down by a distinct lack of lyrical variety that fears wandering far from personal adventure, nights out and relationships. This fact is amplified by British Intelligence, with its pseudo-political edge and Spider’s Web where our protagonist name-checks Obama, Osama and Gaza before bringing the song back closer to home so he can rap about what he knows: his life in the city.
Whereas bands like The Clash and The Jam that so heavily influence these musicians have had a discernible global impact, the limitation that hinders these young pretenders from making era-defining music simply stems from their reliance on recycling the past to make music for an ever-changing present utilising a common, finite, yet broadly limited commentary. Where’s the future in that? Only time will tell, but in the meantime it’s fair to say that Jamie T has earned his place in the transient tree of pop.
