James Vincent McMorrow

One Liner: Irish folkie who turned to electro R&B
Wikipedia Genre: Folk, Alternative Rock
Spotify Says Similar To: Benjamin Francis Leftwich and S. Carey
Home: Dublin, Ireland

Poster Position: 8
Slot: ?

Thoughts:  Well, dammit, I wrote a whole post on this guy already and somehow lost it overnight.  And I'll be damned if I'm going to try to re-crea...  who am I kidding.  I live for the minutiae of this shit.  So, this guy is an Irish dude who started out writing good, confessional, folky tunes that are pretty spare.  I'll give you his most listened to original, "We Don't Eat," which clocks in at 28.9 million streams and comes from his 2011 debut Early in the Morning.

That tune makes me want to go find my mom and give her a big fat hug.  The music is super basic, but lyrically and vocally, it feels so warm and full.  The rest of that debut album has this same kind of feel, tender and exposed and raw.  But then his more recent music drops all of that old school craftsmanship for a more modern electro R&B sound that I find disappointing.  Here is the most popular non-cover track on Spotify for him, at 18.1 million streams, "Get Low," which hails from the 2016 album We Move.

Yeah, that changes the sound considerably, into more of a hip hop sound, complete with autotuned-ish "gettin' low" tweaks.  And by the way, that video is some real deal afterschool special PSA about remembering your helmet when you skateboard.  Becuase if you don't, you'll make water vibrate when you rub your head and your girlfriend will cheat on you with some other guy at a party.  You've been warned, man.  
McMorrow also has two covers, one of which (Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game") blew up because it was used as the backing for a trailer for the sixth season of Game of Thrones, so everyone horned in on it and listened to it 36 million times while they crafted clay models of Tyrion riding Rhaegal over the burned out sept.  The other cover (Steve Winwood's "Higher Love") has even more streams at 57.9 million, but its spare treatment honestly doesn't hold a candle to the original's brassy joy. Finally, let's check him at the Tiny Desk to see what the man sounds like in person.

This was published in 2011, so all four of the tunes are the folky tracks from his debut album, and you don't see any of the new sound that he has jumped into in his last albums. Too bad, I prefer the soulful Irish balladeer over the new generic R&B sounding guy.

Recommend?  Yes, to listen to the old stuff, but I doubt I'd go see him play.