A thread in which we offer no-doubt considered and nuanced opinions about the indie singer-songwriter Jake Bugg

http://static.nme.com/images/gallery/2012JakeBuggReadingSat01AW250812.jpg

I drink to remember, I smoke to forget
Some things to be proud of, some stuff to regret
Been down some dark alleys in my own head
Something is changing, changing, changing

I go back to Clifton to see my old friends
The best people I could ever have met
Skin up a fat one, hide from the Feds
Something is changing, changing, changing

So I kiss goodbye to every little ounce of pain
Light a cigarette and wish the world away
I got out, I got out, I’m alive and I’m here to stay
So I hold two fingers up to yesterday
Light a cigarette and smoke it all away
I got out, I got out, I’m alive and I’m here to stay

Down in the kitchen, drinking white lightning
He’s with my momma, yelling and fighting
It’s not the first time praying for silence
Something is changing, changing, changing

So I kiss goodbye to every little ounce of pain
Light a cigarette and wish the world away
I got out, I got out, I’m alive and I’m here to stay
So I hold two fingers up to yesterday
Light a cigarette and smoke it all away
I got out, I got out, I’m alive and I’m here to stay

There’s a story for every corner of this place
Running so hard you got out but your knees got grazed
I’m an old dog but I learned some new tricks yeah

So I kiss goodbye to every little ounce of pain
Light a cigarette and wish the world away
I got out I got out I’m alive and I’m here to stay
So I hold two fingers up to yesterday
Light a cigarette and smoke it all away
I got out I got out I’m alive and I’m here to stay

Hey, hey it’s fine
Hey, hey it’s fine
Hey, hey it’s fine
I left it behind

is it true he's shagging ed sheeran?

This cock is going to be Number One on Sunday.

Skin up a fat one, hide from the feds.

Actually on reflection I think this kind of thing is just what the charts need. Many of today's stars are sanitised and stage-managed to the point where they've about as much rock and roll attitude as a glass of water!

This kid may not be the next Dylan but he has a two-fingers attitude to the faceless boy and girl bands that are dominating the airwaves.

Light a cigarette and smoke it all away

"give me that cigarette you nonce, you call that finished? when jake bugg smokes a cigarette it stays fucking smoked. even the filter."

usual unattractive ilx mode of middle-aged guys laugning at young people.

An old dog who's learned some old tricks, you mean?

All these obnoxious little shits
Need their throats slit
Tie up a fat one
Drain his jug like a pig

usual unattractive ilx mode of middle-aged guys laugning at young people.

i don't recall laughing.

you're not middle aged though.

They sent him on tour with Noel Gallagher's band, which is hardly a sign that your music is meant to be inaccessible to middle-aged people.

what's it like being middle aged guys Matt

matt is actually stephen, nigel, and jules

I don't understand your young person's hipster references.

leave the youths to their acoustic guitar music

"I took her along to a drum'n'bass rave... 'course it was called jungle in those days...'"

Colleague's husband's friend is involved in his management or something, which means I can't swear when he comes on 6music.

dog latin tell me those aren't lyrics

haha, no i think it's a paraphrase of an armando iannucci sketch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqmjWCk36C8

rather this at number one than boring leona "entitlement" lewis and her new album "shoot the rioters."

relax guys, this is a lana del rey situation

have we seen the video btw, LOOOOOL at the final shot

let me know when you start talking about the music of jake bugg instead of sneering.

sure thing, i can do that. piss off back to your oblivion and await my call

how do you mean a lana del rey situation?

he's no Sonic Boom Six

^^^ trying to keep it positive

sure thing, i can do that. piss off back to your oblivion and await my call

way to keep people on ilx there.

Does he have a hilarious boyband past we don't know about or is he going to be all "thanks to everyone who made me Number One, remember, say no to Shariah law" this time next week?

hang on i've actually listened to it* now, is his voice meant to be like that?

*about 20 seconds, i'm not made of stone

apologies to newbies under the mistaken impression that ilm has anything to do with discussing music. other messageboards are available.

okay i'm going in

ldr in the sense that it's different to sheeran, this is like a espresso one-shot postcard simulacra immersion of the bygone like video games was rather than a wider resumption of lbzc hostilities

we need a proper dissection of this faux cinema verite Oasis b-side genre of sensitive acoustic "working class" scallywag folk punk and what the fuck its appeal is beyond the Campaign for Real Britpop massive

it's not 2000 anymore.

this sounds like cast.

I've still not heard any Sheeran. Where does it stand in relation to Frank Turner? Because I'm getting a similar any-port-in-a-storm vibe.

Sheeran less angry about people claiming dole and using libraries than Turner, music pretty much the same empty shite

wasn't it weller saying back in '77 "how can i be a fucking revivalist when i'm only 18"? nothing changes. shame on number one hitmaker jake bugg who will soon have more money than everyone on ilx put together for not making like shoreditch brostep cutz sampled from the italian porn soundtracks he bought from intoxica in 1996.

good post. really makes you think.

i was thinking about Boxcar Willie

Saw an ad for this guy on Channel 4 yesterday, assumed it was some sort of hilarious parody effort.

born in 1994. don't trust it.

david icke thinks he's a lizard. xpost

don't knock j bugg for not being doop.

"fuck this guy, he's no doop"

Ah, ILM Jake Bugg thread, I've been expecting you.

No boyband past; he emerged onto the Nottingham acoustic circuit three or four years ago, came to wider notice via BBC Introducing in 2011, which gave him some national airplay and festival spots. The main change post-signing is the shift towards rockier material; this time last year, he was still an acoustic act, plaintively channelling Don McLean and Donovan. Some hear Lee Mavers in him, I think it's more Gene Pitney. He has probably had some encouragment to amp it up. Good advice, I reckon. It's added a few more colours to his palette. "Lightening Bolt" is a great track, for instance. I like a bit of skiffle.

Yeah, he's become a bit of an inadvertant lightnening rod for rockists, but I don't have much trouble in separating the discourse from the content. Good album, tails off a bit towards the end though.

Full disclosure: he's our local boy made good, on course to be the first properly home-grown Nottingham act ever to have a Number One album, the whole city's going barmy, and it feels GOOD!

sheeran's not reactionary real britpop like this, he is just the manifestation of the ultrastudenty cup of tea, sensitive tears into my kebab melodrama niche

sheeran = kip, bugg = ukip

No results found for "doop dubstep remix"

:(

knock everyone for not being doop imo

i'd rather doop
than listen to poop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOxQXjovxCo

i just couldnt have planned this any better

surely only a matter of time before we get a Jake Bugg vs The Bug mashup

I'm sort of interested in which audience his management is predominantly aiming at. I mean Ed Sheeran is obviously actually popular among young people and aimed squarely at them, which is why he went straight to the Radio One crowd and collaborated with Wiley and JME.

Jake Bugg's path to success via 6music and a Noel Gallagher support suggest he's the sort of artist that a panic-striken music industry can throw at middle-aged people while not frightening off their kids either.

(xpost - is that a jackin mix? Please tell me it's a jackin mix)

dub war inna babylon shottingham xpp

Bugg sings Shakespeare, via Simon Bates "Our Tune":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwFXiJ_Shhk

best believe i first searched for doop jackin but shockingly none was to be found. writing a letter to the leeds mp

donk otoh never fails

i'm not bothered how they're marketed. all i care about is whether their music is any good or not. bugg is ok. sheeran is also ok. if you don't like them, other musicians and records are available.

altho technically speaking that is scouse house iirc

sheeran working with grimeists is not marketing it should be said, it's permitted by his handlers but off his own bat

sheeran appearing on on a softie ukg song he himself wrote was deemed off-message however

i don't think social context has any place in music discussion tbf

Bugg's core fanbase skews heftily towards teenage right now, but oldies think ahh, cute, we get this. I don't see any meaningful comparisons with Sheeran at all, though. Very different approaches and personas.

marketing demographics are not the same thing as social context.

reminds me more of Arctic Monkeys bloke than owt

well, yes. hopefully he won't go down the alexa chung/string of crap albums moaning about "have you seen my blackberry?" route.

the lyrics are quite sheeran. the music, not really i guess.

doing social commentary or poet of the streets shtick is a narrow alleyway that leads that way tho

the pre-collabs sheeran "you need me" vid kind of suggests marketing to an urban audience was a strategy

http://www.metrolyrics.com/wake-me-up-lyrics-ed-sheeran.html

quite but not quite

blueray, tru say

betamax, fook off

anyway, irrespective of market or whatever this just sounds like ugly imaginationless grind to me, bleating about escape while reveling in the "realness" of hinted at grime (not Grime) like a dog licking its own sick. maybe he's got better songs but the single is genuinely depressing in the worst way.

He is shite

usual unattractive ilx mode of middle-aged guys laugning at young people.

usual unattractive ilx mode of middle-aged guys laugning at prematurely middle-aged guys, you mean

How has Matt DC not heard Ed Sheeran? Wow.

Sheeran seems more genuinely naif / youth / urban and eclectic as a result, whereas Bugg seems to be in a vein of classicism / songwriterly authenticity / etc descended from Weller and Gallagher. They're both teenage boys (is Sheeran 20 yet?) with acoustic guitars and semi-observational lyrics about youth culture in the 2010s though.

Hence comparison seems fair enough.

grime (not Grime)

it's not 2003 anymore. grime was what internet bods thought should happen when amy winehouse was actually happening.

It's not 2003 any more. Those guys now have #1 singles and dominate the charts.

a couple of them are. but not with what they were doing in 2003, though.

i mean, what chance does j bugg have against fortysomething burial and his "exclusive" £10 CD "single" which is in every record shop?

i was only indicating what the word meant, not advocating the greatness of Grime. "happening" has nothing to do with how i consume music tbh, because i am middle-aged

fraser t smith dominates the charts morelike.

wtf has JBugg got in common with Burial? Why are they being mentioned together?

it's the tendency to include lyrics about things "people don't talk about" under the misguided assumption that there's any merit in these things as lyrics, that unites sheeran/bugg for me.

what chance does j bugg have against fortysomething burial and his "exclusive" £10 CD "single" which is in every record shop?

so is it okay to take the piss out of marketing or not? i'm confused.

confused is a useful word right now.

considered and nuanced opinions all round!

and can we please not play some bullshit youth vs age game as if that has anything to do with the musical ideas or heritage available to anybody in internetworld

why not? it's what ilx does as a matter of routine.

if you say so, i'll defer to unevidenced opinion, yay punk's not dead

never trust a hippy with a ten quid single

actually i don't want a row. sorry. i'll stop arguing. personally this shit sounds shit to me, other opinions are of course available.

"Two Fingers" makes me grin, because while half of Nottingham tries to claim kinship/appoint him as cultural ambassador, he's going fuck you, I couldn't wait to leave this rancid shithole. He premiered it at a big open air festival over the summer, in front of a partisan home crowd. It was a special moment.

like noodles says it's hollow admonishment of the kitchen sink that's got its head still submerged in it

whatever that means.

sigh seriously matt can we not get rid of this senile old cunt

i've now flagged two of your posts. keep digging that hole.

you guys need to chill out

otm

both seem fairly relaxed

i think they need to heat in

agreed.

http://mikeatkinson.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/561585_379186328826221_476469153_n.jpg

Oh shit didn't realise music was in danger! Stop Leona!

rise up rise up

72hrs to save music.

are the lions a bnp thing?

TAKE THE POWER BACK!

He looks weirdly sinister in that picture. Or is giving you evils in the school playground.

has Leona Lewis got some kind of spoken word thing out then?

Oh dear God, don't be from Nottingham, you massive tool. Was secretly hoping the Clifton reference would be Bristol (very rich Clifton) as opposed to Notts (very poor Clifton).

Number one, huh?

usual unattractive ilx mode of middle-aged guys laugning at young people.

― Here he is with the classic "Poème Électronique." Good track (Marcello Carlin), Thursday, 18 October 2012 11:17 (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

See, my take is: Ed Sheeran is quite good, it's not for me but hey, he writes well and he could be a lot worse.

Wasn't it the final "Word" magazine that said that on the queen's birthday do, Grace Jones was vital etc, whereas Ed was unenergised to anyone that didn't know the songs already?

So hey, why not compare Jake Bugg to Grime (or grime), reminds me of the days where the Stud Brothers would interview Lloyd Cole, etc, and ask them why they weren't more like Front 242...

Music is saved! Fly high, little bird.

I miss old ILM, which would have moaned at length about Brave Futurist Leona being unjustifiably kept out of her rightful throne by Boring Real Music Jake.

I wouldn't have agreed with it then either, but it's always fun to read.

I've not heard Mr Bugg, so I 'reserve judgement'..

Alice usually knows..

Isn't that what's being said upthread, Marc?

i don't break this down as a case of anything vs anything, i just think that the sort of weary personality-based sludge that somebody like Bugg churns out is anti-musical if anything, and that any attraction it holds for people is likely based on extra-musical signifiers too. there's precious little musicality in there that i can hear.

work that relies on "meaning something" to its audience or being relatable is the nadir afaic

Yeah so this guy beating Leona Lewis to number one in the album chart probably pissed off Simon Cowell quite badly, although I'm pretty sure he'll forgive him quickly enough and we'll get lots of his songs being done on next years X Factor. He's probably already put the word out to producers to look out for the new Jake Bugg.

I'm sure you right.

NV's two posts are gibberish so I'll pass over them.

I'm sure YOU'RE right *sigh*

still striving to provoke eh MC :D

i think what i wrote was pretty clear, and maybe not the kind of argument that invites a refutation - surprise, surprise, this comes down to taste, not class war.

but it has occurred to me this is central to your complaint about the "middle-aged" sneering at the "young" - which is silly and hackneyed enough that i'll ignore that part of it - Jake Bugg and his ilk invite the listener to buy into the concept of Jake Bugg, voice of a generation. if as a listener you have no interest in the Meaning he's pushing at you then there's little musical substance to discuss. we're left to engage with what he's saying, because what he's saying is central to the Jake Bugg experience.

or rather, i don't think people will get into him unless they get into the lyrics, and that's an unmusical demand imo

sorry NV but you're talking total 1982 bollocks.

the sort of aspiepop thinking that puts, for instance, "on a mission" above "welcome to the black parade" because, hey, there's no message, and therefore by default that's a GOOD thing (huh?).

Well, that all might be true, but it depends on how much it matters.

If it's the 'comparison point' against LLewis that her words 'do not metter', I'd disagree.

If it's a musical dimension that needs fulfilling, I'd go somewhere else than either of these artists.

This is getting into Dead Poets Society soon, where we rip up the textbook that seeks to quantify literature by three target applications...

i'm trying to be v. clear. it's not "this" vs "that". it's not "no 'meaning' is better than some 'meaning'". it's "banal lyrics plus banal backing which appears to exist as nothing more than a scaffold for the lyrics is shit"

i'm not prescribing what music shd be. i am saying it's not only some words plus some 'meaning'.

but y'know Marcello i don't think i've seen you give us one positive eulogy for the boys music on thread here so why not try to persuade rather than harangue?

jake bugg isn't joyce grenfell you know.

I go back to Clifton to see my old friends
The best people I could ever have met
Skin up a fat one, hide from the Feds
George, don't do that...

http://mikeatkinson.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/image.jpg

NV, there's more to JB's success than "words and meaning". People like him as a performer, for starters. Also wondering if your analysis is skewed by recent singles; "message" songs are a minor part of his catalogue, statistically at least.

i'm happy to take your word for it mike, i've not felt inspired to dig further than the singles.

'Lightning Bolt' is better than this song in a kind of pleasant throwback way. The song in the opening post is dire in both execution and "message", the latter of which seems to equate to "I don't live on a council estate any more thank fuck".

Which is 'fair enough', right?

Yes!

Yes again!

to be fair, he has to be congratulated, if you sell 17 albums then nobody can argue you deserve to be #1

He sold 35,785 copies actually.

straight into the ILM british thread canon, this one

He sold 35,785 copies actually.

heart and soul of the nation's youth.

Also: fuck off Nusic, you twats. Nottingham *has always* had a great and vibrant music scene, and celebrating someone shit for the sole fact that they got to number one is actually going to make things worse, not better. Fuck you fuck you fuck you.

just 'cos you never got to number one/sold 5 copies of anything

is there another song that puts him in a better light than the plodding midtempo "I hate my hometown" one

http://www.xcomment.com/g3/img/haterz031608021025.gif

just 'cos you never got to number one/sold 5 copies of anything

good zing. i respond with, i sold 5 copies of your mum.

they were near mint

mint jelly

just cos you never got to number one

Actually, I think we might have even sold 6 copies of one of our records. In the big time, oh yeah.

6 copies = number one in 2015

FWIW you only need to look at the kind of gleeful dismissal dished out to the likes of 2002-era Coldplay to realise that old-skool ILM was not really a community predisposed to even-handed appreciation of commercially successful and hyped major label Brit guitar music.

... so I take it there isn't a song that puts him in a better light?

You could try Simple As This, or Lightning Bolt.

Emily, Nusic has done a lot more for Nottingham music over the past few years than merely cheerleading for potential chart acts. They're good folk.

... so I take it there isn't a song that puts him in a better light?

If there is I hope it's taken from him forcibly.

FWIW you only need to look at the kind of gleeful dismissal dished out to the likes of 2002-era Coldplay to realise that old-skool ILM was not really a community predisposed to even-handed appreciation of commercially successful and hyped major label Brit guitar music.

And what a beautiful place it was!

You could try Simple As This, or Lightning Bolt.

having lightning bolt as a backing band would def help this dude out!

I really just can't get past the timbre of dude's voice; the nasal rasp hits me exactly the wrong way

oh well, I tried

Understand that, to be fair. It took me a while to adjust to the voice. Seeing him live was the turning point.

Ach, mike, you're probably right about Nusic, at least to a point. I don't even live there currently, so it's just this and an ill-considered article I saw a while back that made me cross. I still think a lively DIY scene is a million times more important than scoring hits. Plus, if you end up with something like Liverpool or Manchester, it has always seemed to me that bands struggle to escape the weight of history there, so I'm fine with avoiding that, thanks.

http://mikeatkinson.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/image1.jpg

*barf*

what building is that

The local Barfs according to emil.y

It's the city council house in the old market square.

the imperial residence of jake bugg

Bugg House

Jakes out back

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/feb/07/jake-bugg-mumford-sons-posh-farmers-banjos

In the past Bugg has spoken about keeping "X Factor shit" out of the charts and railed against "manufactured" pop. But given that all pop is, to some extent, manufactured, it makes him an easy target for critics. Some have jumped on the fact he uses co-writers – such as Iain Archer, formerly of Snow Patrol – on his songs. ("Sometimes Lennon needed McCartney and sometimes Simon needed Garfunkel," Bugg reasons. "You'd go mad doing everything on your own.")

Also, an actual sighting of "I just write songs. If people like it, then great"

An inspiring figure.

Has anybody actually said they like this guy on this thread?

I like that song, 'What Doesn't Kill Ya'. It's pretty irritating, but in a gratifying way --- like chewing on a canker sore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt-f8un0Nfw

Well done, fuckface:

http://www.hungertv.com/feature/interview-jake-bugg/

I think he's pretty good.

his music is sort of annoying but i kind of like him after reading those interviews. he's only 18, maybe he'll do something interesting sometime

He might develop a krokodil addiction and hire The Kasai Allstars as his band, who knows? But even remotely interesting? Never.

It hurts becoming an old music loving square, especially when the stuff you don't get would have been considered degenerate mediocrity in the late 80's. Sorry just railing against some of the idiocy up-thread.

never apologise, xelab

YOUR SONGWRITING HAS BEEN COMPARED TO THE LIKES OF BOB DYLAN AND NOEL GALLAGHER. HOW DID THAT MAKE YOU FEEL?

I didn't read the rest of it

do people want jake bugg to die? if so why, and in what circumstances?

Slurry fumes.

trapped in a tank of slurry fumes.

i like that thing he does when he scowls in front of words e.g.

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/864x486/p013wm67.jpg

http://static.gigwise.com/gallery/7275064_wenn20138731_666.jpg

http://legacymedia.localworld.co.uk/275790/Article/images/18168030/4571740.jpg

Marcello Carlin

http://legacymedia.localworld.co.uk/275790/Article/images/17402165/4337116.jpg

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/XuWJ7ZWyw2I/0.jpg

http://www.nottinghampost.com/images/localworld/ugc-images/276368/Article/images/20792542/5894408-large.jpg

http://static.gigwise.com/artists/wenn20805547_jpg_600.jpg

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/XuWJ7ZWyw2I/0.jpg

killin the game

http://cdn03.cdn.justjared.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/sacha-grim/sacha-baron-cohen-gets-into-character-for-grimsby-04.jpg

a mix between The Stone Roses and Primal Scream with the swagger of Oasis

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jun/29/kasabian-or-spinal-tap-billy-bragg-tell-them-apart

Reviving this thread as an actual fan of Jake Bug (holy hell the baseless bickering upthread was so hard to read)

I think despite his weird voice, he's developed a really stellar range/delivery/phrasing/control/style. Also he's a fantastic guitarist, theres a video interview with a guitar site out there he did where he basically spends 15 minutes showing off his chops and having a blast. All guitar talk and music discussion, not self-promoting at all.

He's also imo a fantastic songwriter. He doesn't bat 1000 with all of his album tracks (and I generally think his uptempo stuff tends to be plodding and pandering to rebellion a little too much) but he's got some absolute diamonds:

Lightning Bolt, Simple as This, Broken (the Rick Rubin version), Slide and A Song About Love are all classics (and I like most of his other tunes, even if they aren't on the top tier with these 5)

Here's A Song About Love, for anyone curious to see what he did after dropping Two Fingers and pissing a bunch of people here off:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Veq6GQHU3is

Great vocals, unique musical form, creative time signature switch in the pre-chorus, great sound and heart wrenching lyrics. He's the real deal when he's at his best.

Also, 3 years later the comparisons between Bugg and Ed Sheeran are downright hilarious, considering where they are in the cultural relevance spectrum AND their newest music. Stuff like "Don't", "Sing" and the T-Swift collab could not be farther from Bugg's output.

dyin'

ah googlers - some things on ilx never change.

jake is a top bloke, met him a couple of times and he sure knows his stuff

looking forwards to some more heartwrought lyrics and guitar wizardry from this mega nottinghamshire based troubador in 2015

cheers

"ah googlers"?

People revive old garbage threads on this site all the time,but just because it's a singer you don't like and you don't recognize my screen name I'm a mischievous "googler" and you feel like you need to threadcrap and hate on me? Jeez I'm just trying to talk about music I like and get some folks talking

Nakhchivan, I'm hoping im not falling into a sarcasm trap here but it's cool to hear that Jake is chill to his fans

admiral nakhbar