Whether you like Nerina Pallot or not is quite besides the point here (although those cliché little on-beat guitar strums and the general 'heard-it-all-before' stompy-pop nature of the whole thing - absolutely fucking DIRE if you ask us) but watching this video is a really bizarre experience. Nerina, for the uninitiated, used to be signed to Polydor or something but her debut album, Dear Frustrated Superstar, didn't even make the top 75 so she was dropped.
After that she made and released her second album, Fires, on her own label before being picked up by Warner and given the whole major label album makeover (according to the ever-reliable wiki: more strings and 'more spangly'). This album campaign was a relative success. The album peaked at 21 but went gold, the lead single went to number 14 and there was an Ivor Novello award nomination as well as Brit award nomination.
Quite what happened after that we don't know. She still appears to be signed to her 'imprint of a major label' but WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE? What the whole point of this hackneyed and overlong post is that the video (up there) was clearly shot on a budget of about £2.59 and a packet of Skittles. No, it really is dire. We don't even have a problem with cheap videos if they're inventive and/or interesting and make use of the whole cheap-as-chips aesthetic. But this is a poor attempt at the kind of 'off-beat quirk' (ewwww) that she deployed to much better effect here where she clearly did have a budget.
It's a strange experience to see people who were previously (fleetingly) 'stars', suddenly going all DIY on you, but such is the nature of artists like Nerina Pallot. Unconcerned with setting or following trends, she seems happy to continue peddling her featureless MOR pop regardless of major label money thrown her way.
We have to say that even if we find her inexcusably boring and quite amusingly out of touch ("I've come to love really good pop music. The band I became obsessed with was MGMT.") like your semi-cool mum embarking on a pop career, we admire her for the following reason: she's just kept going. A lot of artists lose the big money and big public interest in their career and just get a job in retail or PR or the ASDA fish counter and spend the rest of their lives saying things like "yeah I was signed to a major label once - wasn't for me... I just like to be free when I make music".
Well Nerina hasn't done that. She's carried on making music on her own terms, even if its thrown up some rather hideous results. Music (even if it's boring music) is clearly her lifelong passion, and that's heartening to see in an incredibly cynical and cool-chasing industry. Well done, Nerina.
After that she made and released her second album, Fires, on her own label before being picked up by Warner and given the whole major label album makeover (according to the ever-reliable wiki: more strings and 'more spangly'). This album campaign was a relative success. The album peaked at 21 but went gold, the lead single went to number 14 and there was an Ivor Novello award nomination as well as Brit award nomination.
Quite what happened after that we don't know. She still appears to be signed to her 'imprint of a major label' but WHERE HAS ALL THE MONEY GONE? What the whole point of this hackneyed and overlong post is that the video (up there) was clearly shot on a budget of about £2.59 and a packet of Skittles. No, it really is dire. We don't even have a problem with cheap videos if they're inventive and/or interesting and make use of the whole cheap-as-chips aesthetic. But this is a poor attempt at the kind of 'off-beat quirk' (ewwww) that she deployed to much better effect here where she clearly did have a budget.
It's a strange experience to see people who were previously (fleetingly) 'stars', suddenly going all DIY on you, but such is the nature of artists like Nerina Pallot. Unconcerned with setting or following trends, she seems happy to continue peddling her featureless MOR pop regardless of major label money thrown her way.
We have to say that even if we find her inexcusably boring and quite amusingly out of touch ("I've come to love really good pop music. The band I became obsessed with was MGMT.") like your semi-cool mum embarking on a pop career, we admire her for the following reason: she's just kept going. A lot of artists lose the big money and big public interest in their career and just get a job in retail or PR or the ASDA fish counter and spend the rest of their lives saying things like "yeah I was signed to a major label once - wasn't for me... I just like to be free when I make music".
Well Nerina hasn't done that. She's carried on making music on her own terms, even if its thrown up some rather hideous results. Music (even if it's boring music) is clearly her lifelong passion, and that's heartening to see in an incredibly cynical and cool-chasing industry. Well done, Nerina.
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