Ally Kerr. What can I say about Ally Kerr? A lot of things actually – very few (if any) of them complimentary.
This wee tune,
Without You, taken from his self-funded album,
Calling Out To You, is “…one of the most beautiful songs you’re likely to hear all year long…” according to the bumff on the back of the CD cover. Well, forgive me for differing but this tune is the biggest pile of shite you’re likely to hear all year long.
The vocals are very James Iha circa ‘Take me Down’ – peely-wally, dishwater-tea kind of singing. There is nothing about Kerr’s voice that I find appealing. The backing vocals are the kind of wispy blonde-in-floaty-dress awfulness that appeared in the ice-cream jingle tunes Damon Albarn had a penchant for sticking onto the end of, otherwise decent, Blur albums.
The music itself starts as an attempt at Sunday morning easy listening and quickly degenerates into the kind of plinky plunky arse your 14year old brother, just learning to play guitar, produces in his bedroom on a Saturday afternoon whilst pulling the “I’m so deep, I’m so sensitive” pose.
The lyrics. Oh my word, where do I start? More to the point, where does Mr Kerr start? Rhyming couplets that smack of addition purely because they ‘sound the same and are easy to fit a line around’? That’s not song-writing! It’s just not.
The Scotland On Sunday went on record as saying Ally Kerr was “…one of the most interesting and creative musicians working in the country right now…”. Utter pie. There is nothing innovative, creative or even original about this song. I’ve heard it a million times before – and done a million times better. If you want something innovative or creative may I point you in the direction of Negativland or Neubauten. If you want unoriginal pap by someone you’d throw a shoe at if you heard them strumming it at a house party then please, listen on …
www.myspace.com/allykerr.
As a wee footnote, if the bloke that paid the Scotland on Sunday for their glowing review happens to be reading, I‘ll take it all back for £50 and a hotdog from the burger van on Woodlands Road.
"Without You" is available on Neon Tetra records now
