James Bay

Normally when I do a blog post, I give myself some time to really listen to the artist and mentally critique the music that fills my ears, before I type it up for your viewing. But this morning at about 8:30am, like every teenager in the morning I was in bed, mid-way through my 20 minute social media scroll-through/update before heaving myself out of bed and into the bathroom. Just as I was about to move from Twitter to Instagram, I saw James McVey from The Vamps tweet someone saying "I wonder who showed you this sweety" to a certain female, (spelling error or under the radar nickname?! Who knows?!) Anyway, I clicked on the Youtube URL, to be greeted by 'James Bay-Let It Go.' Honestly, I thought this was going to be a cover of Let It Go from Frozen, but it was to be the complete opposite.

Now as you may have gathered, I do love a boy band, but when it comes to music I love finding new, up and coming, musical gems. Personally, I categorise artists such as Mike Dignam, Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, James Morrison and now James Bay (I think your first name basically has to begin with J, to have a chance of making it into this category), as my 'chilled acoustic musical gems."

Now much like Mike Dignam, James Bay begins this track with his acoustic guitar, but in complete contrast to Mike's low, husky voice, we are greeted with a higher pitched vocal which is effortlessly followed by a beautifully controlled tone and what I call "barely there high notes." Furthermore, towards the end, Bay displays a much more growling and seemingly 'raw' tone which personally, I absolutely love. Because to me, it's like the artist is trying to depict to the audience, their raw passion and emotion towards the meaning or person behind the song. (For example, the later half of Ed Sheeran's- Give Me Love) 

So using my detective ways (clicking on the video's links), I found his Soundcloud which then led me to all of his other social media platforms, including his Website, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. 
To my delight, I immediately found his EP on his Soundcloud which includes,

• Let It Go, 
• If You Ever Want To Be In Love, 
• Heavy Handed, 
• Hear Your Heart 
• Running

My 3 favourites are Let It Go, If You Ever Want To Be In Love and Running.

To me, James' voice in If You Ever Want To Be In Love sounds identical to that of Mr James Morrison, however instrumentally different to Let It Go in the way that the piano and drums are predominantly the main instruments. This gives the EP some refreshing variation, which is seemingly hard to find these days, as most artists just churn out supposed "hits" that all sound the same.

Running, is one of the slower songs in comparison to the previous tracks, with beautiful lyrics, reminiscent of Mike Dignam's When You Coming Home with the paralleling theme of having someone you love, helping you to rediscover yourself when you feel lost or out of place (soppy I know.) 

Further down, his feed, you will also find numerous covers including HAIM's- Forever and his first EP, The Dark Of Morning

I'm predicting a big big future for James, he was recently played on Radio 1 review thanks to the beautiful Ella Eyre's recommendation, so I believe 2014/2015 are going to see James' fan base increase expansively and deservedly so!

Just one final note, if any of you, like me, are going to V-Festival this summer and like James' music, you'll be delighted to know that he will be playing on the Futures Stage on Saturday 16th August at Weston Park in Shropshire and on Sunday 17th August at Hylands Park in Chelmsford.

If you can't make it to V-Festival, he has just announced that he is doing a gig on September 10th at St Stephen's Church in London, so be ready at 9am tomorrow when tickets go on sale.