Jake Bugg - Shangri La


If it's not quite the jump from Bob Dylan to The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, it's the closest recent equivalent, a prodigious rate of development for such a tyro talent, all the more remarkable for not being reliant on significant musical progression, so much as raw songwriting ability. [*]

Andy Gill really does talk out of his arse, doesn't he?



There are three types of Jake Bugg:
  • There's the "just been to L.A." Bugg, cultivated by producer Rick Rubin, with his stickers of Americana and blues stamped on his suitcase, resulting in 'Kingpin' and its self-aggrandizing arsery ("all the eyes are on your crown/ people want to take you down", he fears). He might be fit to support the Arctic Monkeys one day.
  • There's the "I'm still Jake" Bugg seen on the album opener 'There's a Beast and We All Feed It'. It sounds exactly the same as his debut's hit Lightning Bolt but he has to include otherwise we'll all think he's American now! He's very perceptive here. He even uses the word 'tweet' to show how weird and new that website Twitter is. Oh!
  • Or there's the lifeless 'Pine Trees' Bugg, desperate to be played over some Instagram-filtered Centerparcs advert.



Listening to Jake Bugg is a little like listening to Bob Dylan, alright - if you turned the pitching of his nasal voice up to excruciating levels, took out all of the poetry and power, and served the LP with a slap in the face for daring to question it. I'm sorry, but he's wank. Total wank. An idle bit of toilet-wall graffiti for people who think music - or their perception of it, in all of its laddish, tiresome glory - died when Oasis split up.

Rating: 1.5/10
Highlights: What Doesn't Kill You; All Your Reasons
Avoid: Me and You; Slumville Sunrise; Kingpin; Pine Trees; There's a Beast and We All Feed It

Artwork Watch: I'm a little frightened by the absence of a JAKE BUGG sign making that shadow.
Up next: Cut Copy  

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