I am feeling nasty so I’m going to be nasty, please do not take me too seriously though, I may feel very differently in a week.

I wanted to make a comparison between two popular artists of the day, Sam Fender and Ed Sheeran. Now I don’t know these guys or much about them, but I know them through their output as you do too, though I never make the mistake of thinking that I have a personal relationship with the artist through the art. You know this one, when that pal of yours thinks that the artist they listen to is concerned about them because they identify with the output, or is even somewhat aware of their existence (in their minds). Anyway, I know which output I value and which I think is rubbish, you won’t need to read too far to find out. What follows is my rather nasty opinion, nothing else.

Sam has narrative, it is not merely a lyric that fits a melody. What Ed makes are nursery rhymes for children and childish adults, containing lyrics that could be replaced by any old sentimental birthday card nonsense. Ever holding the thematic of loving someone from one of three perspectives, from afar, within a relationship with that person, or following the loss of their company. I can’t believe that we still ask so little from our songwriters that we will again and again accept a G,D,Em,C progression with an Am thrown in during the chorus, layered with a catchy nursery melody that plays around just like the recorder songs you learned in primary school.

How much of this formula is Ed and how much is the army of producers, I have no idea? I know, I suspect, that the pop artist enters the studio a different animal than they leave it, and maybe Ed was once a credible songwriter with something to say that might be worth a listen? I know this guy can mechanically play some instruments, but so can machines and many people, and anyone can make music if they know the rules. It is estimated that one in every six people on the planet is a proficient singer, so that’s over a billion people who can sing, so it cannot be the fact of that ability that proves the art worthy.

We, as song absorbing fans, have never been nearly as impressed by the proficiency of the musician as we have been by the song itself. I’ll give you an example, Steve Vai is an outstanding technical guitar player, some might contend he has no equal (that is of course subjective), yet Mark Knopfler has written some of the songs of my times, and my dad might say that Dylan, the Stones, or the Beatles wrote the tracks of his (other artists are available). Knopfler is a superb guitar player, but in a technical comparison against Vai he might be found measurably lacking, that’s not just my opinion, there is nothing that knopfler could do with that instrument that Vai could not easily replicate, but that would not be true the other way around. None of this matters a damn, Knopfler writes more than technical songs, he knows what to leave in the spaces, he captures the emotions of life and manages to take the listener on a journey, he is a composer of songs rather than music. Vai shows off his guitar playing prowess, his mastery of the instrument, I would say this often is at the detriment of the song, with the song often being no more than a vessel that holds the extended and almost impossible guitar movements. I suppose Vai could be thought of as heavy rock’s equivalent of a concert pianist?

Now there are people that would argue, they would say that Vai is worth a listen, that they love his music, and who am I to disagree? This is not what I mean, I am not saying that Vai’s songs are bad, that’s too subjective a judgement. What I am saying is that what he is concentrating on is the instrument as expressing his goal in playing it. Knopfler is a songwriter that plays the guitar very well, Vai is a virtuoso guitar player that contributes to songs. I’m not even saying that Ed’s songs are bad, I’m saying they are for limited palettes, the child’s portion, the baked beans and fish fingers meal of music. Ed’s output is a contribution to music in the way that MacDonalds is a contribution to cuisine IMHO.

Sheeran is a burger from a chain of fast food outlets, one that comes with fries and a just-add-water syrup based version of a well known sugary soft drink. His success is as a marketed product. Somebody decided to make him, or some other version of him, the pop fashion item of the era. Ed is not the artist, he is the kitsch, the waving cat, the billy bass. I’d go as far as to contend that left to his own devices he would have put no more a dent in the music scene than a sponge would leave when hurled at an anvil. I truly believe this, I’ve lived long enough to realise that what is popular is what is meant to be popular as dictated by those that wish it to be so. Popularity is not a meritocracy, nor does it in any way indicate either the quality, or the proficiency, of the pop artist in question.

“The problem with the music industry is the word industry” – Frank Zappa…

Conversely, Fender is a guy that has achieved his position because he has written songs of human experience, set to tunes that suggest a subtle brilliance, and lyrics that excel in examining how a young man might feel while facing the problems of the modern landscape. Using all the same patterns, but avoiding sounding formulaic and contrived like a nursery rhyme, Fender’s songs feel fresh and creative, yet also a homage to the great heritage of musical art that precedes and likely inspires them. Seventeen going under is a masterpiece of storytelling, carrying a thematic narrative of despair and unsureness that we can sympathise with even if we do not recognise these words as reflecting our own particular lives. The boy that hides the pain of his losses in humour, an angry young man that doesn’t quite know where the anger comes from, we are experiencing this introspection in poetry set to music, with Fender even bringing back the saxophone to scream beautiful melancholy into the pop melody.

In that song I am on the journey with him to understand the reason of the person I used to be. In another tune we get to know the struggle of an often challenging relation between a son and a father, the spit of you examines how two people can both love, and be disappointed in, each other at the same time but not be able to find a way to communicate it. Again we find in Mantra, lyrics that reflect a young man realising that he has been drawn into a world he wishes to escape from, his background and his class hold his potential greatness back, he’ll not realise the artist inside if he keeps trying to be what others want him to be. 

I haven’t included any Sheeran lyrics for examination, they just aren’t interesting. What is he to write about, his cello lessons at prep school, his parents links to the world of art and publishing that maybe gave him his great start, his rather boringly upper middle class upbringing? The contents of his songs are not the narratives of his audience, hard work and strife, maybe they are some form of escapism? They’re not his own story either, they are speculations, guesses at the emotions of the everyman and everywoman. I’m not saying his life has had no strife, that he doesn’t feel real things, that he is not a person just like you or I, but I am saying that when the teenybopper and the menopausal housewife dance round their kitchen with his songs blaring there’s something of a hoodwink going on that relates to effect rather than affect.

I’m being harsh, Knopfler sings of being in Napoleon’s army, of being a tattooist, of the scaffolders wife etc, and I’m sure he has been none of these, but there is an authenticity because it isn’t a love song, it’s a story. Researched thoroughly, put in musical poetry, and accompanied by just the right music and not an ounce more. Anyone can tell a story well in this way, it’s just that Knofler tells it in a believable way, and is that not what art is all about?

This is just my opinion, you may disagree.

Paul S Wilson