Jake Bugg

One Liner: Great first album of Dylan+Arctic Monkeys, to generic pop rock now

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, indie folk, blues, blues rock, country rock, Americana, British blues

Home: England

Poster Position: 13
Weekend Two Only.  Friday.

Thoughts:  Huh.  I could have sworn that this cat had been here before, but I don't see that I ever wrote a review for him.  If you don't recall him, he had a supremely great debut album that sounded like a cross between Bob Dylan and Arctic Monkeys that launched him into stardom at age 18.

Born Jake Edwin Charles Kennedy in Nottingham, England, he was the kiddo of parents who both worked real jobs but had also made music in their time.  According to Wikipedia, his formative musical moment was during an episode of the Simpsons, when he heard Don McLean's "Vincent (Starry Starry Night)."  Which is a deeply weird origin story, but maybe better than some.  At 16, he got to perform at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival, and after that debut album was released, he won some awards and started hitting the late night shows and whatnot.

The 2012 debut album has several tracks with more than 50 million streams, and then some that are much lower.  "Simple As This" sounds like Simon and Garfunkle.  The top track is the second one, "Two Fingers," which is a little more modern sounding, with just over 80 million streams.

My man looks like a little kid as well!  Just a perfectly pleasurable little pop nugget of guitar rock.  But the whole disc is a nice retro thing - a 60's folk revival with a few modern flourishes to bring it into today.  I really enjoyed listening to it.  

And after that album, he went for an even more rock-ish tone on the Rick Rubin-produced Shangri La, released in 2013.  Doesn't seem like people went for it as much, as most of the songs are under 10 million streams.  The top track is "A Song About Love," with 18.5 million.

Super generic - nothing as nice as the tracks from that earlier album.  Like Hanson or something.

It sounds like as he has grown up in the spotlight, he's been through some generic rock and roller activities.  Dissing corporate popstars, dating supermodels, receiving approval from Noel Gallagher, etc.  And as his star has faded from that first album, I don't think his music has gotten any better.  I actually reviewed 2016's On My One, his third album.

"Jake Bugg - On My One.  For whatever reason, this album has kicked around in my new music playlist for months, and always ends up being right after whatever I want to listen to.  So I've heard the first three or so songs about 3 billion times.  Usually I get about that far in and decide I want to hear something else instead.  If you remember this guy, he came out with an album as a teenager and everyone fawned over him with awards and adulation.  I like that first album (2012's Jake Bugg) well enough, and this one is also just fine, but I won't say that I'm in love with it.  The top track from the album is a kind of sappy one called "Love, Hope and Misery."  just over 3 million streams [now at 8 million], so nothing nearly as popular as his older hits (which top 35 million).

Brings to mind a depressing ass Ryan Adams tune that someone remixed to add in too many strings for the chorus.  This is fine, but I'm going to let it go."

And it hasn't gotten any better since then.  2017's Hearts That Strain has a bunch of songs with only a million streams.  And then he had a few years of gap before releasing the very poppy Saturday Night, Sunday Morning.  The top track on that one is "All I Need" with 19.7 million streams.

Yeah, disapprovingly generic tune.  Sounds like a filler song for a boy band guy who left the boy band and is trying to make people think that he can make serious music on his own so he hired a gospel choir.  And his Noel Gallagher ass haircut is also a problem.

I'm bummed out!  After re-listening to the first album I was all excited about the idea of seeing this dude, but now that I have gone through the newer stuff I am not very interested.