Like Groundhog Day, but every week, I take an artist’s name from a pickle jar and listen to their back catalogue. It’s better than facing the inevitability of the news.
This week I had the exquisite pleasure of listening to British singer-songwriter, David Gray.
What I Knew Before: I knew Babylon and therefore I knew White Ladder. I also knew “O” but this turned out to be by Damien Rice.
What I Know Now: David Gray is from Sale, Cheshire. He has a lot of studio albums as well as a number of live performances available on his Spotify. I am fairly sure that if I ever got the opportunity to see him live then I would cry. I have no doubts that he will be an artist I continue to listen to and maybe I should have listened to certain people and got here sooner.
Favourite song(s): This is difficult because there is so much material. The obvious ones are This Year’s Love, Babylon and Sail Away. I liked Shine and Birds Without Wings from A Century Ends and Faster, Sooner, Now from Sell, Sell, Sell. His cover of Buckets of Rain was lovely. Some of the tracks on Gold in a Brass Age reminds me of Bon Iver. I’m working on a theory that it was his reaction to 22, A Million.
Favourite album: I’m going to do the obvious thing and not say White Ladder, and that’s because the way he sounds on A Thousand Miles Behind is raw and sublime.
I’ve started a Spotify playlist where you can listen to my favourite songs across this project: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3vjalT7B0EFZOv0k3610CX?si=pI1ivFnORwGXKYW8jbjqjA
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