The Script – ‘For The First Time’
Ah poor old the Script. How tough it must be to find yourself the million-plus-selling band whose light, if you took it out of the musical firmament, would be replaced by the overspill from all the other similar stars, before it had even properly been extinguished. The cash might help lessen the blow for a while, of course, but the fact remains we don’t NEED them, there are other people who can do the job just as well.
Oh sure, they can rock a mid-tempo grown-up pop song, they can throw some hip hop delivery into their songwriting mix, and they can emote gruffly like nobody’s business, but when you get right down to brass tacks, they’re just a grizzled Keane, with him out of the Courteeners scatting his way through the Bon Jovi songbook over the top.
And it’s no use singing about how times are hard, Mr Danny, I haven’t even STARTED yet.
(Here’s the video. New York, not as much fun as Alicia Keys says it is.)
I mean YES they know how to layer up a song into a great big musical sundae, with a cherry on top. They do know how to do that. It’s a very nice-looking sundae too. Got lots of different stuff in there: a sweet spiralling “ooh” refrain in the chorus, a slightly bitter lyric about trying to make a relationship work in the middle of desperate circumstances, and some solid chunks of piano to hold it all together.
And YES when you get involved in the story of the two fate-battered lovers, and how they’re going to put things right between them by sitting up all night talking nonsense and having a laugh, well that’s very nice thing too. Which of us wouldn’t relish a night like that from time to time? They’re always magical.
And OK I have to admit there’s a certain stirring something about Danny’s voice. A catch at the right moment here and there, a rasp when it’s needed, it’s all good storytelling stuff, a man at his wit’s end, wailing into the night, etc…
BUT when you get right down to it, this is ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’ all over again. A good song, but, y’know…the same song, even with the gritty lyrics.
Download: Out now
www.thescriptmusic.com
BBC Music page
(Fraser McAlpine)
Pop From The Block says: “It fails to instantly grab you the way that The Man Who Can’t Be Moved and Breakeven did”
The Prophet Blog says: “I don’t mind a bit of super safe, manufactured radio-rock here and there”
Coffee City Music Lounge says: “The band has an amazing ability to connect with their audiance and to write songs the listener can relate to and be moved by”
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