The Hour of Bewilderbeast - Badly Drawn Boy (2000)
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Genre:
Folksie guitar
Ian Brown (sort of. It's unique!)
Pissing in the Wind, Once Around the Block |
 Buy it at Amazon! |
Why did I buy it?
It won the Mercury Music Prize, and I was curious.
At first glance, Damon Gough (aka Badly Drawn Boy) resembles a one man band
- an eccentric with a crochet hat, harmonica and guitar. However his music
is unique to the extent that Dylan and Bowie were, in their day.
This is a gentle collection of feelgood songs, sometimes in an old fashioned
style, "This Song" having a vibe of Simon and Garfunkel, and a retro disco
feel on "Disillusion". It is over an hour long, and although initially
confusing, has an alluring naivety to the music.
The tracks have a largely musical bias, and when the lyrics do jump in they
are surreal, like "I will never grow older because I drink from waterfalls"
and "all we have is an old ball of string, will it reach to the end of
this dark labyrinth?" The album proves Gough's versatility, but has no
apparent purpose, or focus, in the manner of early Pink Floyd albums which
wandered along to see what happened without trying to be any one thing.
Coming back to this album now, after the initial immersion in it while it
was new, I am not sure when I would play it or long to hear a particular
track. However, it is a pleasant addition to your collection for esoteric
moments in your life - maybe this will eventually hit the spot.
Yes.
This page last updated: 01 September 2022
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