One of the first conversations TheBrit and I had was on accents (though I’m not sure he remember this, being old and all). For when I would say, “I so do love a Scottish accent,” TheBrit would state something along the lines that he was very fond of Mid-Lothian variations but not so much on Glaswegian. Okay, I could get that. As a native Yank, I could distinguish between someone from Texas and Alabama while a non-native Yank possibly could not. I can, however, distinguish between Irish, Scottish, English and Welsh accents but not necessarily the regional dialects. And that ability to pinpoint out various inflections has more to do with my Anglophile musical and television taste over outright study.
But what is it with the American fascination with accents? My own bland, non-descript voice is not remarkable in the slightest other than it’s husky and low. I don’t have cute diphthongs or cleverly slur vowels together. I don’t chop off consonants or adjust my pitch on specific words. I am known to make adjustments to certain word pronunciations randomly, but as far as accents go, mine is pretty boring and is also pretty fly-over-states American. But I think it is also because of my self-confessed blandness that heightens my fascination with non-American sounds.
And it was during the course of our conversation on accents that TheBrit and I discussed Mockney and the uproar surrounding it in music circles. We were interested in the phenomenon of singers (and bands) who would fake an accent (and to some degree, a life style) in order to become popular. What was is it about Cockney that is so appealing? While it predominates a small geographical area (eastern London), its influence is felt world wide. Even freakin’ Madonna has taken to speaking with a Cockney accent even though ‘ol girl is from Flint, MI. And then there is the case of certain bands, like Bloc Party, who are from East London but are definitely not defined as a Cockney band. But then you have someone like David Bowie who started his career singing in the tone of a perfect public school boy and would later change his singing style to sound more common and of the streets aka Cockney.
In recent years, acts such as Lily Allen, Kate Nash, The Streets, Adele and Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz/The Good, the Bad and the Queen) have come under fire for affecting Mockney inflections in their singing to give themselves a thought of highly desired street cred. The believability that that any of these people are really from the lower working class London is like the U.S. taking Vanilla Ice seriously as someone who came from the ‘hood.
TheBrit and I loved the idea of doing a Mockney theme but the number of artists to truly make it worthwhile is limited and we would end up using the same artists over and over again. And there was another problem — these are legitimate artists and not necessairly one-hit wonders. Damon Albarn is so entrenched world wide in the music industry that you can’t pick up an album these days without his signature on it somewhere. Lily has just dropped a new album which is getting fairly decent radio play. Adele won two Grammy and Kate Nash is doing wonderfully with her solo effort in the U.K. and here in the States. So instead, we decided to choose just one Mockney performer to scrutinize and I chose Kate Nash.
Kate Nash, is it seems one of the more new promising artists these days, was found via her MySpace page and really blew up when Lilly Allen put Kate in her top 8 - so the story goes. And if you scope out Ms. Allen’s top 8 now, you’ll notice a certain young British chanteuse who recently won a Grammy is now encased firmly in Ms. Allen’s top 8. Interesting.
But I digress. Shortly after blowing up on the interwebs, Nash released a few singles on a local indie label before signing to Fiction Records. Her first album, Made of Bricks, was released in the U.K. in August of 2007 and in the U.S. in early 2008. Her second album, as yet untitled, is apparently still in production with release date tentatively set for 2010.
What makes Kate Nash mockney? There are conflicting reports of her birth as several reputable sources place her birth in Dublin and moving to London at a fairly young age while others make the claim she was born and raised in London proper. The only consistency is that Kate was raised in Harrow, a semi-affluent borough located north-west of London. Thus by affecting a cockney delivery in her singing, which is symbolic of the working/lower class of eastern London, is what makes her mockney. She’s been referred to as a third rate third rate Lily Allen (who, herself, was called a third rate Wendy Richard).
Nash is adorable. She’s doesn’t have, really, the sizzling sexy vocal range of Adele or the in your face of Lily Allen, yet she’s a combination of both. She’s playful and fun, much like Allen is but without being so in your face that you want to bitchslap her, something that I tend to want to do after listening to Allen’s albums because Allen’s so-called in-your-face after awhile seems less like using it as a storytelling device and more like a sulky, whiny drama queen. While I like Allen’s music, I can’t listen it to for too long before I want to stab her. True fact.
Nash has the emotional depth of Adele in terms of introspection and story telling while at the same time she comes off more as adorable, approachable girl next door and not the “oh woe is me, I hate you! Don’t leave me!” soulful moodiness of Adele. Nash writes perfect pop songs that are toe tapping, jangly good fun but are not so bubbly and fluffy that they are devoid of meaning nor are they so freakin’ depressing, which Adele’s soulful tunes tend to become after listening to them for an age, that you want to go off and kill yourself.
Take Foundations, which tells the story of a girl in a relationship with a boy who perhaps she shouldn’t be with and she questions the value of their relationship which is all set to a head bopping tune. It aims to provoke a seriousness (introspection in terms of relationship) but it’s difficult to believe the seriousness of said introspection when you’re spending your time bopping around your apartment. But having been in that particular position myself, I can understand Nash’s use of fun to make something that is difficult more palatable. Having grown up in the boom years of Depeche Mode and The Cure, I wonder if I would be quite so moody if there was a Nash equivalent at that time?
Yet, remarkably, Foundations climbed the charts in the U.K. It is not difficult to believe that it has staying power or pop-worthiness but since when did hearing a pop song about the demise of a relationship make one want to blare their radio and dance around their apartment? Apparently, it does.
In Mariella, Nash explores the idea of wanting to be in someone else’s shoes with the narrative swapping between the two persons but with the Mariella verses about the difficulties of being her. We can all agree, perhaps, that there is a time in our lives when we want to be in someone else or when being ourselves can be too burdensome. Children are cruel creatures and if you’re the slightest bit different, there is hell to pay. But what delights Mariella is that while she knows that people don’t necessairly understand her, she knows all the secrets in the world and sometimes that is enough.
Kate Nash may not be the world’s greatest pop star nor will she perhaps light the world on fire with her songwriting but what he does have over most singer/songwriters is the rare mix of honesty and playfulness that makes her songwriting special. Her career will be one to watch in the future and I’m eagerly awaiting her second album.
Kate Nash - official site
Kate Nash - Wikipedia
Kate Nash - Last.fm
Kate Nash - MySpace
