Kate Nash is still a new artist, and debate rages about if she will still be remembered a year from now -- let alone 10 years on or more. Nash polarises popular opinion almost as strongly as marmite, her first single -- Foundations -- was largely ignored by commercial radio, until it went to the top of the charts in the first week of release. Naturally, after that it started getting added to playlists. The Independent newspaper described Nash's debut album asbeing in "pole position for worst album of the year" -- but it still went to number one.All in all, I quite like her.
Nash is similar to Lily Allen in a lot of ways -- both launched their "careers" largely though MySpace, both went to performing arts school but make out that they aren't posh (Kate Nash is accused of playing up her North London accent), and both are just a tiny bit chavvy. Musically the similarities are there, too, with their simple songs and storytelling lyrics. Kate Nash owes much of her popularity directly to Lily Allen noticing her on MySpace and proclaiming her to be the next big thing -- which seems more than a little bit vain, given how similar their style of music is.
Kate Nash amuses me -- perhaps unintentionally on her part, but I think she does have a very dry sense of humour of her own, and while her songs might not be the most polished, I think she has a particular charm.
There are a couple of parts of her songs that stand out for me that I want to look at in more detail. A characteristic of the likes of Kate Nash and Lily Allen is their chavtastic syntax -- coming from Essex, how they speak is very familiar to me, and without being a snob it tends to make you sound very thick. Kate Nash overuses the word "well", as in with the song Birds "they almost fly into your eye and make you feel well scared". The first time she sings that line she says "so scared" and that sounds fine, so I don't get why she changes it.
The song Birds is a deceptively sweet tale of an inept boy trying to express his feelings to a girl, the couple seem very chav in their described anti-social behaviour -- like not buying a ticket on the train, and then drinking on the bus -- but I feel a certain affection for them, like Nash herself. One part in the song in particular always confuses me when I hear it. I'll post the lines below, then discuss it, so you can see what I mean.
"the ticket inspector saw him rushin` through he said, girl you don't know how much I missed you. I know I'm being picky, but the way it's phrased makes it sound like the ticket inspector is saying he misses her. I get that she says the ticket inspector saw him rushing through -- and then cuts to what "he" says, and it might be sexist to assume the ticket inspector is a man, but just the same I thought at first the girl ran off with the ticket inspector. Which was odd.
but...we better run
cause I havent got the funds to pay this...fine"
Another part that amuses me unintentionally goes like this:
"...he said you look well nice.
well she was wearin a skirt
and he thought she looked nice and
yeah she didn't really care about
anything else because she only
wanted him to think that she looked nice
and he did"
Aside from that she overuses the word "nice" (like she overuses "well"), I like how disjointed and almost pointless it is -- it makes me smile, even if it makes the couple (and Nash herself) seem a tiny bit thick.
The boy tries to tell the girl how much he likes her by way of elaborate metaphors -- particularly one including birds which are scary but beautiful, even though they can "shit on your head". The girl's reaction is a spectacularly chavvy "Wot?" followed by "What are you talking about?". If there had been a third time she had to ask, she probably would have just bottled him.
Foundations is another boy/girl song -- but instead about a dysfunctional relationship. It's almost refreshing in a way -- after songs like Hey There Delilah to see the other side of the coin, not a sad song about an unhappy break up, but instead a frank look at a couple who really just aren't getting along any more. The song/story starts with the couple in the pub with their friends, and the girl notices he has a look in his eye that he's bored with what she's saying. Naturally, it escalates -- he says something to humiliate her, so in her best chav voice she replies with "yeah, intelligent input, darlin', why don't you just have another beer then?" and it descends into an argument in front of their friends.
What I find interesting with the song is that it's not just that they hate each other -- part of her does still care about the boy, on some level. The chorus says "My finger tips are holding on to the cracks in our foundation, and I know that I should let go, but I can't" -- maybe I'm a sap, but I find this a little sad. She knows their relationship is over, but quite bring herself to "let go".
The song has other little chav culture references -- the boy gets drunk and gets sick over her new trainers (and while, yeah, it's pretty awful, you can just imagine that being the worst crime for a chav, getting their prison-white trainers spoiled), or how she winds him up telling him "I'd rather be with your friends, mate, 'cause they are much fitter". That line doesn't work if you don't quote it exactly -- you've got to have the mate in there, but still you have to hear it, just for the accent.
But at the same time as knowing she should let go and not being able to face it, there is a moment -- when she's left the boy to sleep it off on the couch and deliberately not turned the heating on -- she says "Dear god, I hope I'm not stuck with this one". She almost feels trapped.
Foundations
Birds
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