𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿 - this week: My Favourite Child - Simone Vignini

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.

𝙈𝙮 𝙁𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝘾𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙙 - 𝙎𝙞𝙢𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙑𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙞

Charles favours one over the others…

So you’re single. Having the time of your life. Enjoying every day to the max. Utterly free and untethered. What joy it is! But you rarely realise it at the time. From time to time however, you do start to get a wittle bit wonewee. Just a wittle bit. You want to share these fun times with someone. But not in the way you would with your best friend. You want something closer. SomeONE closer. So you keep your eyes peeled and wear your lucky red t-shirt. Soon enough you spot the cutest little thing with the sweetest of moustaches, and a pretty little large beauty spot right in the middle of the forehead. Attraction can be a queer thing, and love can sway and skew all. Their name is Mel, and things go rather well. Ah hell, it’s better than that, can’t you tell? You fell to one knee, they said yes, and now it’s wedding bells! What fun, what larks, what japes! Nothing could spoil this beginning of forever. But like every business, expansion is the key. So they got fat. Well, one did. But before getting thin again, a thing arrived by stork. A little bloody blob of a person, no less!

But just like you, this person sought company. Little blobs are useless at this however, and need help. So a couple of years later, it all happens again. Blob number two. So that blob number one can pull its ears and poke it in the eye. It’s called exploration. It’s called affection. It’s called love. Within a decade or so, there are seemingly hundreds of the little blighters. Like minions! To devote equal time to each of them is not an easy task. But can’t you just pick a favourite and devote all your time to that one? But of course not! We don’t do favourites around here. No sir. Everyone is equal. Everyone is just as good. Be it blobs, or even indie artists within the New Artist Spotlight. Favouring one over the others is wrong. It just wouldn’t be fair. Oh wait. That’s utter tripe. We only pretend to be like that in public. We all have our favourite artists. We all have our favourite songs. We all have/will have our favourite child. We just tend to keep it to ourselves. Well, most of us, anyway. When it comes to our own children, this favouritism really should be kept within your own mind. That’s right folks, Lie your little hearts out, for as long as feasibly plausible.

So you were single. You made friends. Well now you are doing it all over again. Your blobs are your friends too! But this time you’re LITERALLY making friends. You CREATED them! Scuplted them, crafted them, moulded them and probably warped them. Ask any psycho-analyst. The problem usually stems from the parents… Hence “I blame the parents”. But you will always have a favourite. That favourite will be more like a friend, or even a little twin. You will probably go for the one most like you. The one of whom you had the most success in cloning a “mini-me”.

Before I move on, please don’t take any of this too seriously. All a bit of fun. You remember: humour…? When we were allowed to have fun with such a thing. People can be such bores these days. Try not to be a person. You were born a blob, and you will always be a blob. We don’t do favourites. Pah!! That is EXACTLY what I do! I pick my favourites each week. Otherwise I would be writing a review for every song on the New Artist Spotlight. In which case, due to time constraints, each review would amount to the sum total of a lot of the comments I get: “good song”. Which is not exactly my style. Hence I pick and choose. To pick and to choose is much the same. A little like rising up. The sun can’t rise down, can it! I must try and fit in a review before I am escorted off the premises for cruelty to air.

Simone Vignini is Italian. It is quite rare that I review Italians. And I love to do so because I feel some sort of connection with them. Maybe this week it can be called Connolli’s Cornetto. STOP DIGRESSING AND BEING SILLY!! Simone has been in the New Artist Spotlight for as long as I can remember. I think from memory it was with his single from July 2020: Wait. Then in 2021 his NAS hit was probably Fuzz Days. And in 2022, Always On My Mind and Tonight were a popular ones in the community. But now, his latest single is my favourite by Vignini so far. My Favourite Child. Simone doesn’t like to get bogged down in one particular style or sound. His range is actually pretty diverse, but you can always tell it’s him. He has ventured into acoustic, instrumental, pop/rock, and even released covers as well. This single is of the pop/rock/alternative variety.

I hear a lot of influences from 1980 to 2010. The earlier influences seem to be Joy Division, early U2 and Talking Heads. Simone’s full-throated voice is slightly reminiscent of Tom Waits, not so much in sound but in delivery. There is a looseness with the confidence of an arched eyebrow, as if to say “You talkin’ to me…?”, that really contrasts well with the strict metronomic beat of the instruments. The snare’s rim, hi-hats and bass all lock together to form a solid, stable, unmoving tempo. The guitars glide over this like a ship that has sailed before. Which is why this loose style of vocals really works so well. There is vocal unease, like Ian Curtis from Joy Division. Another band’s singer springs to mind, in terms of delivery: Charlie Steen from Shame. Wicked band, if you don’t know them. It’s a way of lazing through the lyrics, only to quickly snatch them back at the end of a line. It’s like snapping one’s fingers in order to make sure they’re paying attention. Works wonders. I also hear moments of Pete Doherty and Damon Albarn in there somewhere.

But this is all before the song explodes into Noughties heaven. A movement in music that was started by The Strokes in 2001, but only fully integrated in the industry by 2004. I would say this lasted from 2004 (Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party, The Libertines, The Hives, Franz Ferdinand) to 2006, when Arctic Monkeys burst on the scene with tracksuits, messy Beatle hair, and Fenders. This era was one of my favourite scenes in music. The energy was back! Simone Vignini has brought back the power of digging into one note repeatedly. It’s so simple, but it works so well! That era The Strokes didn’t know they had invented was all about youth, energy and fun - the era, not so much The Strokes (Julian Casablancas was almost asleep in every record). But it was also cool. Simone too succeeds in this coolness. But he brings something else to the table. Beauty. Big, bold stadium-filling beauty. Arcade Fire did this well. So did Interpol. Most of all though, I think My Favourite Child most reminds me of Kings Of Leon. In that it has something classic about it. Kings Of Leon’s songs will probably live on longer than all the acts I have mentioned here from the last 20 years. So I don’t see why we shouldn’t be playing Simone’s song in 20 or even 50 years’ time (if the world hasn’t blown up by then).

At 2:44 an Eastern element is introduced. It sort of sounds like a cello. It could even be a cello. But I don’t think it is. There is something more organic and less pristine. Maybe an old cello in bad condition? I don’t know. I am assuming it is an Eastern instrument, but it is just perfect. Perfectly imperfect. More and more I lose myself in Eastern music. Those sounds, those scales, those techniques that are just so foreign to the West. And probably why it’s just so refreshing to hear. It also adds darkness and mystery to something already curious. The song comes to a supposed close at 3:14 with a beautifully mouthed refrain. They think it’s all over. It isn’t. Keep an eye on that digit counter while you’re listening.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s Connolli’s Cornetto, even if it wasn’t your favourite flavour…

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