It’s tempting to say it’s a negative thing for Anna Calvi to have been given the kiss of hype via inclusion of the BBC Sounds of 2011 list. When you’re anointed like that, the serious music fan will want to hear something impressive or they will dismiss you entirely, whereas otherwise, they would just never have bothered in the first place. But there’s enough annoying about Anna Calvi to warrant ire without needing it to be magnified. The influences she cites look like they were written by either a critic or a very pretentious teenager – Beefheart meets Maria Callas, Wong Kar Wei meets Patti Smith. But names written on your pencil case do not necessarily mean the music is a synthesis of them, and the album provides nothing new. Songs like No More Words are just Nick Cave sung in a voice that occasionally does a little vibrato for spice. Desire is even worse, Bruce Springsteen done as Nico.
Those singers get away with simple compositions by filling them with personality, cultivated over years making music. Calvi arrives, attempting to achieve this ab initio by just over-singing often. It doesn’t work, unsurprisingly. The production is full realised and excellent, with muted, reverb-soaked guitars and fun-sounding drum thumping making everything a little more listenable, but when you’re singing a mostly melody-free song in a voice you stole off PJ Harvey when she was asleep, it doesn’t really matter. It begs the question: for whom is the Sound of 2011 the sound of 2011? Critics and pretentious teenagers?
Words Karl McDonald
