The Gaslight Anthem - 'Great Expectations'
As obvious as it is to point this out, singing is the core of every song. In fact, singing IS the song. Strip anything from the Top 40 down to a pulse and a voice and it has the same backbone as it would with two orchestras and a kazoo, it's just, y'know, people really like kazoos.
For me, a good song needs a good singer. Ideally there would be more than one of them (I do love a harmony, me), and it would be easy to tell which person was singing at any one time, because of the force of personality their voice brings to the song. They don't have to be classically-trained, technically-perfect singers, even, all I really want is a voice which sounds like it means what it is singing, and a bit of personality, and I am mostly won over...unless the song is rubbish.
I have a problem with the classic pop punk (or emo, if we're still using the word) voice. Y'know, the kind of nasal half-whisper which doesn't count as singing, but it's not really speaking either. You have to bring a LOT of personality to the table to get a voice like that to sound different to everyone else's - Gerard Way does it by being impish, for example - and if you're doling out the same old hackneyed "you girls make me so sad I'm going CUT MY HAIR OFF!" melodrama, you had better be able to stand out from the crowd.
The Gaslight Anthem, while being more classic rock than pop-punk, are lucky enough not to have this problem. Brian Fallon's voice pitches up somewhere between Bruce Springsteen and Brandon Flowers, which allows him to sing a line like "everybody leaves, so why, why wouldn't you?" or "my heart's like a wound" without sounding like the self-pitying party guest who won't come down off the stairs.
(. Hat's off!)
It does help that the band are clearly not trying to be teenagers. Not that there's anything wrong with a) being teenagers or b) bands who are teenagers or even c) songs about being a teenager from bands who are not teenagers but remember what it is like...
...but it's not often you hear a pop song refer to "a dream about my first wife", certainly not from a hot new band, and this sets them up as men singing about man stuff, rather than boys wondering whether girls will still like them if they call them rude names.
In the end, it comes down to whether you can sing your songs like you really mean them. We all know what self-pity feels like, we could all probably come up with a line or two which expresses that feeling, with veiled threats of physical danger and the chance that the one person you'd most want to save you might be off snogging your best friend (man, I need to let that go, don't you think? It's been YEARS).
The special people are the ones who can get that feeling across without sacrificing the hope that something better is on the way, and that's where, among the dark lyrics, you need a voice with a bit of range, a bit of passion, and a nose which is not so stuffed up people think you're singing down the phone.
Now, would it have killed them to put a harmony or two in there somewhere?
Download: Out now
CD Released: March 23rd
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comment number 1.
At 17th Mar 2009, -RachelS- wrote:I love this band's name - it's great!
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Comment number 2.
At 18th Mar 2009, Oliviaaa987 wrote:Heard this on the radio in the car and loved it, to the extent i was desperately trying to scribble down any of the lyrics I could decipher. Had I known you were going to review the song, I wouldn't have bothered.
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Comment number 3.
At 18th Mar 2009, Fraser McAlpine - wrote:Would we ever let you down?
Apart from all the times we have, natch... ;-)
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Comment number 4.
At 19th Mar 2009, spirit wrote:There are some things I like about this song.
It has a memorable chorus with interesting lyrics.
The production is good and the song's energy comes thru.
This is encouraging me to check out some of their other songs.... I love their name too "THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM " it sounds cool.
As for chart success I agree they need stronger vocal presence and and a bigger personality image and video wise . This song shows great potential though... I LIKE IT !!
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Comment number 5.
At 19th Mar 2009, spirit wrote:There are some things I like about this song.
It has a memorable chorus with interesting lyrics.
The production is good and the song's energy comes thru.
This is encouraging me to check out some of their other songs.... I love their name too "THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM " it sounds cool.
As for chart success I agree they need stronger vocal presence and and a bigger personality both in image and video . This song shows great potential though... I LIKE IT !!
Complain about this comment (Comment number 5)