Little in the world excites me more than music. Old music, new music; mainly good music, music I perceive to be good music, that is. There is also something quite magical when you hear something you’ve never heard before, a feeling that takes you to a different place, you know straight away that this song is the stuff of greatness. And it happened to me today.
Infused with a bit of Bruce Springsteen and a lot of The Killers, Sam Fender’s People Watching I can say, without qualification, is the best song I have heard this year. I would imagine the lyrics are great too, as befits one of the big talents of the modern era, and I will check them out in due course, but this song, this fantastic song, is sensational.
Fender’s new album, also called People Watching, has gained a five star review in The Guardian, a relative rarity these days and I regard the reviewer Alexis Petridis as a fine writer and music aficionado. In other words, if he says it’s great, then it’s great.
The likes of Springsteen and The Killers will continue to pack arenas and stadia throughout the world. Springsteen’s peak creative days may be long behind him but he still plays a mean, and endlessly long, show and The Killers are arguably the best touring jukebox in the world, but eventually comes the changing of the guard. And unquestionably the next cab on the rank will include Sam Fender.
My spirits soared as soon as I started watching the video for People Watching, just like they did when I first heard Hello Goodbye and later Telegram Sam, peaking with Steely Dan’s epic Aja. And I am thrilled that in my dotage I am still able to find something new and something incredible and not stay locked in the past, say listening to an oldies radio station, whining about how they don’t make records like they used to. Sam says they fucking well do.
And tomorrow, I’ll be either in Rough Trade or HMV to buy the album. Bring it on.
