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Paloma Faith: The Glorification of Sadness
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Paloma Faith, in the business for fifteen years now, has channelled her recent pain into big, beautiful workable art. MK Bennett reviews.
Paloma Faith is everywoman. She sings for the masses either ignored or patronised by the middle classes, sat as far away as possible on the last train home. What Paloma understands, Adele knows, and Amy knew, is that you are trying to reach people who have no time or believe it is running out. Every provincial disco toilet and every taped-down takeaway menu know these hero songs intimately, repeated and belted out in absolute empathy every weekend, everywhere. These are the modern milkman’s songs, whistled by the school run.
Daring to be different from the get-go, her happy-go-lucky neon presentation was just that if the lyrics were even minutely autobiographical at least, and the press has always treated her badly, never toeing the line adequately and a habit of turning up at the opening of a letter, she had to have the songs, the singles at the very least, and yet again she has produced up to date pop-soul, enough to satisfy the hounds and the true believers.
Long an argument in its shallowest terms but a huge enveloping thing if you care to get into it, Sweatpants concerns itself with whether she is still loved without heels, without finery, hair tied up, getting old but works as symbolic of the idea of being around your career awhile, no longer waiting for the next award, just doing the work. Recognizably Paloma, an acoustic intro before the big drums and the bigger voice. It is almost ridiculous how effortless her octave jumping seems to her. There will be goosebumps before the end of the first chorus.
Pressure features Kojey Radical and a pretty solid hip-hop beat, angelic backing vocals and a lyric about the troubles in one’s mind and the inability to heal or even face them properly.
The Kojey verse is incredible, starting as a sort of complaint about the work routine, a few words later he’s talking about being jealous of his son’s ease with crying. Surely one of the album’s singles, and one for the Paloma playlist. Where some of the album is feminist with a small ‘f’ God In A Dress is most definitely a big ‘F’, in every way. With its massive Chorus of “I am a woman “sung repeatedly and at considerable belting volume, there’s no doubt where its reality lies. A brilliant title with echoes of Pink and Linda Hamilton. A little bit rock, and it suits.
How To Leave A Man appears to be about all those horrors of modern dating, Ghosting, Gaslighting, and worries if not unique to the now, certainly expedited by technological advances. It is also about escape, the will and the way. Upbeat to the point that it’s nearly a Northern Soul stomper, it comes and goes like the protagonist herself. So far, not so much as a boring chord progression. A brief and very churchy interlude before Bad Woman, about forgetting society’s expectations and doing your own thing. It’s well known publicly about Paloma’s marriage and there is certainly a thread, a concept linking the songs, or maybe just a basic framework to hang these on, they are very easy to relate to, this being the human experience. Another huge number, big band soul you can imagine Dinah Washington singing.
Cry On The Dancefloor, when you’re begging for the disco monster, arrives just in time. Not quite a thousand pieces of glass glued to a sphere, it is very close to brilliance, four decades of dance music in four minutes of class. Lyrically perfect like Neil Tennant, a song about losing yourself to a dancefloor of strangers and never being lonely, never going home. A sister song to Weak Become Heroes by The Streets. Say My Name is not a Destiny’s Child cover despite the cheeky intro, it is a great epic emotional bruiser, seemingly about losing your identity to other people’s needs and desires. Another recognizably Palomaesque song, you will be singing it or whistling it for days after first hearing it.
Let It Ride is a collaboration with Kelcy Karter, as with some of the other tracks with a rock slant, full metal guitar solo included, it’s a brilliant piece, reminiscent of both new Country and new rock, Paramore meets Taylor Swift, lazily speaking. Lyrically descriptive, also about escape and not looking back, let Gomorrah burn. The Big Bang Ending is another spoken word interlude about relationships and how we act around them, following the instructions laid out for generations without thinking.
Marvin Gaye found out the royalties from his next album were to go to his soon-to-be ex-wife as decreed by her brother, his boss. He called the album Here My Dear and whilst Eat Shit And Die is not as mean it is certainly as pointed. Somehow both Sixties girl group and Nineties Spice Girls with a cleverly sweet Disney-type string and vocal intro. Divorce is as plain speaking and devastating as that simple direct title suggests. Starting with piano and vocals. it’s very restrained and clear, not a song you can imagine being played live a whole lot, too much pain and visceral meaning.
Hate When You’re Happy, another big number full of big moments and the beautifully spiteful lyric of the recently left, a suspicion they would be nowhere without you. The words are so personal now, you wonder if she put them at the end hoping no one would listen. Fortunately, the music still sounds wonderful, and the words are ever more universal and relatable.
Enjoy Yourself (or it isn’t necessarily later than you think) is a ghost of Mary J Blige’s No More Drama, and whilst it does not quite reach those heights, it puts in its best efforts. A slow to medium R&B groove, the quality has not dipped below excellence once. I Am Enough follows the healing theme, starting to feel some self-worth among the doubts and the disappointment, seeing yourself as others see you. Piano, strings and crystal clear backing vocals, the whole album is beautifully produced, everything exactly where it should be, immaculately dressed. Mirror To Mirror, the last brief interlude, a Dilla-type beat and hope after the dark
Already Broken, track Seventeen and the story is over for now at least. Despite the title, it’s a stoic, grown-up song about adult relationships, about saying the same things again but hoping it is meant, it is both modern yet Seventies New York, Burt Bacharach without Hal David, a bittersweet beauty, Autumn rather than Summer. A stunning high as heaven vocal again, because Only Love Can Hurt Like This, ever. Is the title a comment on our habit of marketing the unhappy, mass media making millions from the Blue dollar? If you want to know what becomes of the brokenhearted, I guess they try and get a book deal. Paloma’s sufferance however is a universal one and will remain one.
Everything about this album is raw, naked and unashamed, from the standard normalcy of the cover to the instrumentation, and the voice a thousand per cent. And somehow, despite the open nerve endings on display, it still finds its way to hope and to joy, even if it cannot always see why.
You can find Paloma’s Website here, plus her Instagram and Facebook.
All words by MK Bennett, you can find his author’s archive here plus his Twitter and Instagram
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