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| What the world needs now is love, sweet love: it’s the only thing there’s just too little of. (Well, not the only thing: also food, human rights, vaccinations for killer bird flu, et cetera. But you see our point). |
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What the world quite patently does not need right now is (a) any more songs about New York or (b) any more sensitive, acoustic guitar-wielding troubadours to regale us with the same: they’re two things we’re up to our elbows in.
We would have thought these facts would have been self-evident, but it doesn’t seem to have deterred Stephen Fretwell from coming up with this single, which seems to tick all the right boxes as far as getting playlisted on Radio 2’s concerned: whiney vocals, piano tinkling, strings and, of course, the ubiquitous maudlin acoustic strumming. Jesus, even his surname sounds like it was dreamt up in a brainstorming session in Polydor’s marketing department.
Two saving graces: it lasts two and a half minutes; and it finishes disarmingly abruptly, as if someone accidentally unplugged the mixing desk and nobody could be arsed plugging it back in again. Bravo. |
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| Mat Beal - 5/10 |
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Name:
Grimlock
| Date:
03/01/06 | Reply
If you don't like this type of music you shouldn't be reviewing it. Leave it to someone who appreciates acoustic folk songwriting at it's very best. I bet you name drop Ray Davies or Bob Dylan when you're prattling on to your mates about 'real music' over a bottle of Sol, but fail to recognise a real English talent right under your nose. Stephen Fretwell (although maybe not yet in the same class as Dylan) is filling the void in this genre of music. Listen to his lyrics. He's no James Blunt. Fretwell is more subtle, more understated and he clearly takes his craft very seriously. For the record, I think he's great. Don't insult artists by trying to write a stupid article with a 'comedy' angle.
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Name:
Dan
| Date:
04/01/06 | Reply
I see what you're saying, but could it not rather be the case that Mat knows exactly what he's talking about and simply thinks that Stephen Fretwell is rubbish? I for one don't know, I've not listened to it, but 'for the record' this isn't folk songwriting. Neither is Bob Dylan or Ray Davies, at least not in Dylan's post 63/64 years. Woody Guthrie is just about folk, but anyway, my point is that I can't really let you have Stephen Fretwell. Probably. I don't know what my point is anymore.
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Name:
Dan
| Date:
04/01/06 | Reply
And forthermore, what's the point of exclusively only letting things be reviewed by people who like the genre already? If an artist can't persuade someone not familiar with a genre to like it then they probably can't be that great, can they?
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Name:
Poodle Rocker
| Date:
04/01/06 | Reply
James Blunt? He's fucking outstanding.
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