Tom Odell: Long Way Down

Tom Odell has been all over the news lately. In February he was seen in intense conversation with serial boyfriender Taylor Swift at the Brit Awards (he’d just bagged the Critics’ Choice gong) and, a few days later, papped fleeing a Hackney boozer in her company.

By all accounts he was deeply shaken by the ensuing media blizzard, which he likened to a scene from civilian-dates-celeb comedy Notting Hill. It is apt that he should reach for a Richard Curtis rom-com reference as his music is, in much the same way, pitched at the mass market. That isn’t to say that, artistically, Long Way Down is a failure: far from it. You will have probably already encountered recent single ‘Hold Me’, a ‘Clocks’-esque broken heart aria that highlights Odell’s way with a couplet and his beautifully textured voice (there’s a grittiness in his delivery that gives even the smoothest wordplay a rough edge). There’s romance too on ‘Hold Me Now’, a Generation Twilight love ballad that might just come off as fatally obvious to anyone old enough to be embarrassed about having once fancied Robert Pattinson. More successful is ‘Another Love’, wherein Odell delves into his own history of being rubbish at holding onto girlfriends and emerges clutching what sound suspiciously like real, powerful human emotions. Still, as the umpteenth tale of forbidden romance or unrequited love plays out, you wish he’d act like a proper 21-year-old bloke and go to a football match or have a singalong with his mates. He’s a fine writer for sure but, next time, Odell could do with injecting a little macho swagger.

Key Track: ‘Another Love‘