FEATURE:
My Favourite Singles of 2022 (So Far)
Two: Fable - Shame
__________
I recently…
crowned her debut album, Shame, as my favourite of this year so far. The amazing Fable also scoops another honour with the title cut from that album. I am running down the five best singles of 2022 so far in my opinions. I will then put together another feature that includes tracks six to ten. Shame is the song that, I think, introduced me to Fable’s masterpiece debut album. Even though Thirsty is my favourite song from Shame, I love the title track loads. Thirsty is this song that, when reviewing the album, I compared to classic Alanis Morissette. It is one of the best songs I have heard in years. There are so many other songs on Shame that elicit the same sort of passion and fervor. In Holly Cosgrove, we have an artist who is going to have an enormous future. I would implore people to check out Shame and spend some money on it. It is an album that is so assured. Like we have an artist who has been putting out music for decades. Truly, Fable is a legend of the future. Someone who is going to play the biggest stages in the world very soon. Maybe I am a bit late to her music. She actually played Glastonbury back in 2016, and has been on the scene for a few years. I think that, like many artists, Holly Cosgrove could transition into acting (and do music at the same time), as she has this aura and command that would translate to the screen. Her videos are one big reason why I would love to see her on the screen.
I will spend a bit of time with the magnificent and beguiling title song from Shame. Before doing that, DORK shared news of this tremendous single back in March. There was a lot of love and positivity from the media when it came to Fable’s immense song:
“It comes alongside a Matt Hutchings directed video, which you can check out below.
“Shame masquerades as a sleek pop song, but when you unpack the themes it’s uneasy in its skin,” Fable explains. “I wrote the synth arpeggio first and built the vocal around my beat and brought it to the studio where Jonas Persson and I turned into this sharp, melancholic pop track. It’s about the feeling of impending pressure in the modern world being met with ever increasing resistance to do anything differently.
“I think it’s really important that people take what they want from the video. Our generation needs to relate differently to our history than previous ones, as we try to reclaim our identity, separate from the one history has handed us. Working with my visual collaborator, Matt Hutchings, I wanted to broaden the scope a little more and ask some searching questions about the nature of shame and the state of society right now”.
Beautifully directed by Hutchings, every Fable video has its own skin and set. You get these mini worlds. Like huge artists such as St. Vincent (Shame reminds me a bit of Pay Your Way in Pain by the U.S. legend) Lady Gaga (there are some vocal nods to her in the song I feel) and Madonna, Fable is such a compelling person to watch. Not only is Fable an artist whose voice is so strong and has this incredible range (both technically and emotion-wise); here is a writer whose lines can move you as much as the production and composition. I have been immersing myself in older music and stuff I grew up on. In fact, the first album I bought was at the age of ten in 1993. It means that one Shame verse especially hit me: “I just wanna be in 1993 before I was a baby/'Cause everybody seemed blissfully unaware/Of the comet in the sunbeam/Vague revolution live mainstream/I'm not playing that game, the future of the Earth's insane/My generation lost to the ket cocaine/Isn't it a shame/That's all anybody seems to say”. There is that desire to travel back to a time that, whilst maybe naïve and ignorant to an extent, was definitely easier, happier, and more prosperous. That addressing of current troubles and sense of doom sits in a song that has this wooziness and compositional sound that seems like the water and skies shaking and falling. Read my recent interview with Fable, as it was really cool to find out more about her.
I am going to wrap it up now. Obviously, go and get Fable’s Shame. It is a spectacular album that I can’t stop listening to. Holly Cosgrove is one of this country’s most talented and special artists. She should be phenomenally proud of that she has given the world. I understand a vinyl version of Shame is coming out at some point. I really adore the title track. Written with Jonas Christian Persson, it is a marvel of a track! The videos are mind-blowing. Shame’s video never sits still or relents. It is a blitz of movement, colours, and different scenes. From the historical classically romantic to something scarier and more disturbed; there is comedy, drama and the quirky all combined in this lightning storm of a video. Kudos must go to a Matt Hutchings, but you also get the sense Fable has a big say in the direction and synopses of her videos. That collaboration between Hutchings and Cosgrove has led to so many striking and memorable videos. Fable has a distinct visual style and ambition that sets her aside from her peers. I want to nod to one more verse before rounding up: “It's such a shame/We make no change/I've got this pain/Just turn your heads away/It's such a shame/We make no change/Just k i ll the pain/That's all anybody ever seems to say”. What a brilliant track! Like all of the songs on Shame, the title track is not one you can predict in terms of its structure. There is this mobility and flexibility where you can hear songs evolve and move in different directions. Testament to the wonderful songwriting talents on display here. I have already named Iraina Mancini’s Undo the Blue as my favourite single of the year. There was no doubt in my mind what was going to be number two. From my favourite album of the year (Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE was second but, to be honest, it was not even that close a contest!), Shame’s title song is a gem. A wonder. From the mind of the stunning Holly Cosgrove, as Shame, she is an icon-in-the-waiting. It is simply impossible not to…
BOW to her brilliance!