Connolly’s Corner

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙒𝘼𝙆𝙀 𝙐𝙋! (& 𝙎𝙢𝙞𝙡𝙚) – 𝙁𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙠𝙡𝙞𝙣 & 𝘽𝙚𝙡𝙡

Charles loses an idol…

Monday morning. For Mondays are when I write these things. I woke up – an achievement in itself. Quick scan of the phone before making breakfast. A sensible person would perhaps make breakfast first, but ya know – I’m just so young and modern! Bleary eyed and stumbly (I would say zombie-like, but those scary days are behind us), I look at the messages that I know I will have to read again when I am awake enough to reply. Get rid of the red dots all over the screen (those with iPhones will know the curse), and so to the ritual of the coffee. Quite amazing what that smell does for one’s soul. NOW I am ready to start the day. Time to look at the “paper”. It’s an app (ugh). What news lurks in store for me? What shenanigans have people been up to? What catastrophes have encroached on our peaceful land? Ugh: Trump, Harris, Harris, Trump. NEXT! Politics politics. Economy economy. NEXT! Baby switched at birth. NEXT! Oh come on, there must be something. Oh JESUS!! Ah gawd. And I am stopped mid slurp. That hollow feeling, as if my chest holds only lungs and nothing more. Our great gilt past continues to evaporate, leaving little but a plastic, mediocre present. Quincy Jones has died. He was 91.

(more…)

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙏𝙖𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙈𝙚 – 𝙍𝙤𝙨𝙨 𝘾𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙡 & 𝙁𝙞𝙣𝙣 𝙈𝙘𝙂𝙤𝙬𝙖𝙣

Charles dons his mortarboard and begins the class. “Settle down, children”…

This week I have moistly – it has been raining in London – been listening Jacob Collier. Many of you may not even have heard of this chap. He is not quite yet 27 years old, and already has a total of 5 Grammys (Grammys, not Grannies – that would be even more unlikely), breaking all previous records of all kinds. Not to mention MAKING records of all kinds. To say he is a virtuoso is really actually putting him down. I believe him to be the most talented musical artist since possibly Stravinsky or even Beethoven, and he is very much a genius. I don’t mean genius in the sense of a footballer scoring a goal, for that is slightly less than what I would call genius. In fact, I very rarely use the word. Paul McCartney is another musical genius. But Mr. Collier goes beyond this. McCartney has a gift. Collier has an incredible mind. If an informed man/woman/person/thing were to have a brain the size of a house, Jacob’s brain would be the size of the street. Or even the entire borough. His musical talents are seemingly quite literally unlimited. It is almost like he has the answer before you have even posed the question! His music knows NO bounds. No bounds at ALL! There is one problem, however. We, the general public are not on his level, or even close to it. We are barely on his horizon. We NEED boundaries. We need something we can understand and grasp. There needs to be a certain amount of familiarity (for most), or even predictability. There is something so satisfying about knowing where “the one” is. There is something so gratifying about knowing that the big old chorus is going to come nnnNOW. Jacob does not however make horrible dissonant disjointed “music”. He makes stunning MUSIC – no quotation marks. But it will only be for certain people, hence despite all the countless awards, he has never entered the Top 40 charts for any single or album. So! Where on Earth is CC going with this? Well. We have learnt that in order to make music that will appeal to the masses, it has to be not TOO dissimilar to music we know and love. But there is no point whatsoever in regurgitating the same old stuff, year after year (although this is exactly what most “artists’ seem to do these days). The question is this: How does one make music more interesting?

(more…)