Tom: Tim, this is beautiful.
Tom: “RPA” is short for Richard Ashcroft, who – to refresh your memory – was the lead singer of the Verve, best known for Bittersweet Symphony. Despite just being released as a single, this isn’t a new track: it was on the band’s moderately-successful album back in 2010, but it’ll have bubbled under after that and won’t have been heard.
Which is a shame, because this record’s gorgeous. I hate to say this, but it’s an X Factor’s winner song here – provided they took the bit of swearing out. I started clicking my fingers along with the bridge, on the quiet ‘my brother / my mother’ bit. No reason. It just happened.
It’s five minutes of life-affirming major-key smile-inducing alternative pop. There’s even a little whistling dubbed in during the outro. It doesn’t sound like commercial bubblegum music – and that’s because it isn’t.
It’s gorgeous, and – for the first time in a long while – I’m so enamoured with a song that we’re reviewing that I’m going to go and listen to the album. I don’t think I’ve ever given higher praise.
Tim: Hmm. That’s quite a bit of enthusiasm you’ve got going there, and I couldn’t really bring myself to interrupt it. But I’m afraid I have to say: not really sharing it. The first time I listened, I properly listened to it, as is appropriate, and just as the bridge hit I though, ‘Wow, it’s finally ending.” It just seemed too long – it’s a full fifty percent longer than three and a half minutes, long defined as the proper length for a piece of music, whatever your genre. For me there was anything that kept me really wanting to hear more, and so I got a bit bored.
Having said that, I gave it another go and put it on while I was putting away my laundry, and I did enjoy it. Moral of the story: if you’re going to make good music, don’t make it too long if you want me to enjoy it.
Tom: Remind me never to show you any prog albums.