FEATURE:
Divinely Uninspired/Broken by Desire
IN THIS PHOTO: Lewis Capaldi
The Weight of Success: The Commercial Lure of the Male Singer-Songwriter and the Deeply Personal
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THIS might be a bit of a mash-up…
IN THIS PHOTO: cottonbro studio via Pexels
but there are a couple of things that have become clear when it comes to the mainstream and particular tastes. It is wonderful that there is this explosion and continued wave of fresh and exciting Pop music. Whether it is a relatively new and rising artist or a legend like Kylie Minogue, I think there is this pleasing core of music that is not particularly personal or overwrought! I like when an artist can bare their soul, but there is something to be said about music that is more escapist and fun. Whereas there are female artists who are exposing their wounds and putting their hearts out there (such as Adele), I think there are more that have this fresh and more thrilling sound. That might seem like an over-simplification, but the most electric and interesting music is coming from them. In terms of energy and inventiveness, they are leading the way. Ellie Goudling recently said that her new album, Higher Than Heaven, was her least person. It was a bit tongue in cheek, though I think that there is this expectation for artists, especially commercial Pop acts, to be personal and revealing. Maybe this was more common pre or during the pandemic, but there has been this reassuringly uplifting and less personal music appearing since then. If there is this phenomenal and catchy as hell bliss coming from a lot of female artists, the same isn’t necessarily true with regards the men. Again, that might be over-simplifying things, but there is a divide. If artists such as Harry Styles can mix the personal with the more spirited and lively, there is still this reliance and lure of the heart-on-sleeve male singer-songwriter.
I am not necessarily talking about the Indie acts like Sam Fender. Years ago, there was this saturation of male artists who were more introspective and soul-baring. Rag'n'Bone Man, Lewis Capaldi, and Ed Sheeran are a few artists who have this very similar sound. This feature is really about two things. For one, it is a music and lyrical style that seems to be very popular and sought-after when it comes to mainstream male artists. The other point relates to a certain weight of expectation and pressure on them. If artists like Ed Sheeran and their ilk are affable and likeable enough, their music doesn’t seem to match the personality. You have Ellie Goulding, Kylie Minogue and Dua Lipa music that very much matches their demeanour and personalities. Female artists are personal and revealing in their music, yet I don’t think there are the mainstream artists who are quite downbeat or wounded that have the same sort of commercial pull. Maybe Freya Ridings and Adele are the big examples. I wonder whether this heartfelt and almost tortured at times sound is taking a lot out of the artist. Does it also have enough depth and nuance to stand the test of time?! Sam Smith, a non-binary artist, has been associated with this same sort of sound and lyrical approach. They are bolder and more daring on their latest album, Gloria, but there does seem to be this awkward mix of bigger and more experimental sounds with lyrics and songs struggling to find identity and depth. Maybe a similar generic and sometimes bland approach. Is there this feeling that they have to be revealing and too personal? You can tell Smith is trying to evolve their sound, but there is that commercial and fan expectation that they need to wear heart firmly on sleeve. I have enormous respect for artists like Smith, and Sheeran, but I also worry about a few things. I will come to Lewis Capaldi soon. He, alongside Sheeran and Smith, have revealed personal struggles and a certain fatigue recently. If their music is very honest and personal, I do wonder if there is this negative effect. That this earnest and revealing music is taking a lot of out of them. I do also wonder whether there is still this worrying trend of embracing artists whose music has this very similar sound. The continued dominance of inner-looking and heart-exposing music. If there are many male artists pushing forward and offering alternatives, these very similar and hugely popular artists like Grennan and Sheeran are not taking bigger leaps or experimenting as much as many of their peers (many of them female) – or whether they are trying and it isn’t working.
Sheeran’s latest album – and the last in the mathematic symbols series -, -, was commended for progress and some attempt to move his sound on. Many explained how he was also harking back to his acoustic roots. How his lyrics were not exactly reinventing the wheel and necessarily trying to speak to those beyond his fanbase. Playing to the masses and displaying a vagueness, there is a pattern emerging. Are big male artists like this expected to stick to a lyrical direction?! Why is there commercial demand for a particular type of male artists that is not necessarily comparable to the sound and type of female artist?! Sheeran went to number one. I can appreciate that Sheeran wanted to be personal and honest on -, but is that what is expected of him – or was this a very conscious decision to reflect personal grief and losses?! He was featured in Rolling Stone back in March. A few parts of the interview caught my eye:
“With Sheeran’s new album, – (pronounced Subtract), due May 5, he’s in sudden danger of achieving a new brand of musical coolness, thanks to some of his most unadorned and emotive songwriting, paired with the chiaroscuro inventiveness of production by the National’s Aaron Dessner. Sheeran knows there’s a chance critics might actually like this one, which kind of scares him: “I’m worried about that, because all my biggest records, they hate.”
Sheeran isn’t afraid to say what he means in his songs, at nearly all times. If he’s grown up and is a father now, he sings, “I have grown up/I am a father now” — the opening line of 2021’s =. His use of metaphor is sparing. He loves Van Morrison, but if Sheeran wrote a song called “Listen to the Lion,” it would probably be about a trip to the zoo, and a Top Five worldwide hit to boot.
PHOTO CREDIT: Liz Collins
Someone on Twitter recently accused Sheeran of making “sex anthems for boring people,” a critique he needs only a millisecond to contemplate. “150 million boring people, by the way,” he shoots back, referring, loosely, to his total album sales, a figure that clearly hovers close to the surface of his mind. “I think I’m quite meme-able. Have you seen the meme of me when I’m queuing up at a record store in my own T-shirt with a bag that says “÷” on it? And it says, ‘Why does Ed Sheeran look like he’s queuing up to meet Ed Sheeran?’ I think it’s because I am quite quote-unquote ‘ordinary-looking.’ I look like someone’s older brother’s mate who came back from college and works in a pizza shop.”
If there’s still skepticism about therapy in the U.K., some young Americans treat it as a sort of miraculous, all-healing totem — hence the prevalence of “Men will literally become the biggest male pop stars of their generation instead of going to therapy”-type memes. For Sheeran, it’s been deeply helpful, but not magical. “The help isn’t a button that is pressed, where you’re automatically OK,” he says. “It is something that will always be there and just has to be managed.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Liz Collins
“Eyes Closed,” the first single, is built around a pinging pizzicato riff that builds to an octave-jumping chorus as big as anything in Sheeran’s catalog: “I’m dancing with my eyes closed/’Cause everywhere I look I still see you.” It’s a rewrite of a more straightforward pop song Sheeran had on hand, a more generic breakup narrative. Now it speaks directly to his traumas and their aftermath: “I pictured this month a little bit different/No one is ever ready.”
There are 14 tracks on –, but that’s not the end of Sheeran and Dessner’s collaboration. Sheeran yanked three tracks from the album that felt too joyous, and realized they were the start of something else. “It was very quickly seen that we were making two different things,” says Sheeran. He went on to write an entirely separate second album with Dessner. He’s already mixing that one, though he’s not sure when it will come out; he wants to give – a chance to breathe. “I have no goals for the record,” he says. “I just want to put it out.”
Sheeran has five more albums in mind using another category of symbols, one he’s not ready to share, at least on the record. He sees the last in that series as a years-long project, with a twist. “I want to slowly make this album that is quote-unquote ‘perfect’ for the rest of my life, adding songs here and there,” he says. “And just have it in my will that after I die, it comes out”.
There is a whole other feature I need to write about male artists and mental health. How music can be therapeutic and a way of understanding and healing. How it can also have very damaging psychological effects when they have to perform these very raw songs live. It is commendable that these men want to be very direct and honest with their fans and music - and their commercial success shows that the audience are connecting with the music. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, the sounds can be very insipid or familiar. If Sheeran is experimenting and genre-hopping, for the most part, the music is quite dry and homogenous. Lewis Capaldi is another artists I have a lot of appreciation for. He is a very funny and warm guy and I always want good things for him. In fact, his latest album, Broken By Desire to Be Heavenly Sent, has stormed the charts:
“Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent has outsold the rest of the Official Albums Chart Top 10 combined in the process. It surpasses the previous biggest opening week of the year – Ed Sheeran’s Subtract shifted 76,000 chart units in its first seven days on sale earlier this month – Lewis now claims the title with his second Number 1 album.
This week, Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent nets in excess of 95,000 chart units, it’s the most streamed, downloaded and physically purchased release of the week, and also the best seller of the past seven days in the UK’s independent record shops. See the Official Record Store Chart Top 40 here.
What’s more, the record outperforms the opening week of Lewis’s debut Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent, which totalled 89,000 chart units in its first seven days of release in 2019.
Lewis also claims the biggest opening week of any album since Taylor Swift’s Midnights in October 2022 (204,000 chart units), and the biggest first week for a male solo artist in 12 months, since Harry Styles’ Harry’s House reached the summit in May 2022 (114,000 chart units)”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Alexandra Gavillet
In a recent interview with The Times, Capaldi explained how his fragile mental health might force him to quit music. Like Sheeran (who also said he might quit music), Grennan and even Smith, there is this label such as ‘boy-next-door’. A certain image and type of artist. Also, in the interview as in the music, Lewis Capaldi is soul-baring. This is an artist and sound that is popular and speaks to fans, but here is another artist who has this commercial success and enormous popularity running adjacent to this very personal music that isa clearly from the heart. The demands of touring and maybe the rawness and realness of his lyrics is having a detrimental impact. If there is catharsis and therapy in the way he can express himself, I do wonder if there is an expectation on the male singer-songwriter to be a certain way. Although it only applies to a few, there is clearly a distinct type of singer-songwriter that has been popular for years. Lyrics that are very soul-baring and honest, but also a little run of the mill at the same time. I have nothing against their music, although there does seem to be a lack of music endeavour and evolution. Again, this might require a separate feature exploring male singer-songwriters, mental-health, and the way there are labelled and marketed – and, indeed, the sort of commercial pull they have. It is an interesting phenomenon that someone like Lewis Capaldi is shifting so many albums, but that is alongside interviews where he voices his worries about his health and longevity!
Also, as many critics have stated, the music can be middling. I know these artists have a huge fanbase but at a time when so many female artists are pushing forward and releasing music that can be personal but also very fun, there are these huge male artists that are sticking on a well-worn track. If his debut album’s title, Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent, was a bit tongue in cheek, Capaldi has been resolutely unmoving on Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent – wanting an album that was not a reinvention; instead something that was personal and similar to the debut. I have a lot of respect for Capaldi and his peers. I notice something interesting when it comes to personality and popularity compared to the musical depth, pedigree and originality. It is clear that the days of the heart-warming and personal male singer-songwriters is not over, but I do wonder whether the music has much substance and longevity (especially compared to what is being produced by incredible female artists). There is also this discussion that needs to be opened up more when it comes to the mental-health of these huge male artists and whether we need to talk more about this. That might be for another day! Although I do have a lot of respect for Lewis Capaldi and his soundalike brothers, I do find the music a little hard to get behind and keep in the head. I do hope they will be okay and keep in the industry, but I also have my fingers crossed that their next studios album will…
HAVE a sense of evolution and invention.