Top 5 songs of the week (14/7/14-21/7/14)

Firstly, I apologise for the late (and lack of) blog posts this week, I have been rehearsing and performing in a few dance shows which is where 2 of this week's top 5 have come from!

So to get straight to it, in at number 5 is a rediscovery of mine whilst I was scouring the Topshop sale (a regular occurrence), my friends and I were just about to walk out when the unmistakeable opening of Two Door Cinema Club- What You Know blared out across the store. We all turned to each other and did the 'ohhhhh what a tuuuune' face (I know you know the one I mean) and started bopping and nodding our heads to the exceedingly catchy rhythm. I don't think the sales assistant standing by the entrance was as enthusiastic as this was most likely, the tenth time he had heard that track that day..

4th position is taken by the incredible James Bay with his James Morrison doppleganger track If You Ever Want To Be In Love, a song that is so uplifting and consequently great to sing along to during your morning shower (this has been tried and tested by yours truly, much to both my family's and the neighbours' delight.)

Third position has also been awarded to James Bay, with his beautiful track Let It Go. I won't say too much about both of these tracks as you can read about them in my previous blog post on the man himself, here. However I have had them on repeat ever since I discovered them last week, so I just had to include them in this week's top 5. To those of you wondering why Let It Go is placed higher than If You Ever Want To Be In Love, it is simply due to the unprecedented tone that he carries when performing this song. His voice is one of very few that I can listen to with complete ease, repetitively, without getting the slightest bit sick of it, so congrats James!

Getting to the nitty gritty of this world renowned top 5.. falling just short of the top spot, is Paolo Nutini and the truly beautiful Autumn. Written in dedication to his grandfather, Paolo has written a song that is so lyrically and emotionally, on point, that it seems it can be applied to almost any situation or person and will never fall short of reducing them to tears. I discovered this song, during the dress rehearsal of my dance show and I immediately recognised Paolo's distinctive voice, but I 'Shazam'ed' it so that I could find out the name of the song and more importantly, so that I could include it in this blog post. (I strongly recommend the Shazam app, it has saved me on numerous occasions from nameless songs on adverts or on the radio) Just a truly, truly, beautiful song.

And finally, in at number 1, another song that I discovered during the dress run of the show and consequently via Shazam is the breathtaking Jamie Woon- Spirits. I have been infatuated, encapsulated even, with this track. In the live version of this track, his loop pedal, beatboxing and harmonising is exceedingly reminiscent of an Ed Sheeran track, however the voice that is to follow, is  just f**king amazing! This song was released over 2 years ago, and how I haven't discovered his voice before now, is completely beyond me! In my opinion, the harmonies are on par with those of the harmony king himself, Craig David. I can't seem to pin point what exactly it is about his voice, maybe it's the simplicity, there are no complicated riff's or run's, just beautiful harmonies and layered instrumentation in support. I kid you not when I say that, since I first discovered this song on Friday, it has been played over 50 times on Youtube.. Like James Bay, I don't see how anyone could ever get sick of listening to his voice because it has totally mesmerised me.
Look out for a Jamie Woon review very soon (probably later on today knowing me) as I'm sure I will become hooked on the rest of his music.

As usual, I don't own the rights to any of the videos or songs that I have linked in this post. The rights are completely those of the artist.

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.