JAMES NEWMAN
"MY LAST BREATH"
and
I'm not sure how to answer my title question...
Here is my annual review of the new United Kingdom entry for this year's Contest, the day after the reveal on Radio 1 & 2 (the bad and the good of Eurovision in the UK) and when the official video was released by eurovision.tv:
Now that was an intriguing watch - James wandering around a snow covered forest, the extreme ice diver Wim Hof having a cameo role with his dog, linking in with the lyrical connection of sharing a last breath with someone else and also (as we found out in his interview on BBC Breakfast this morning) somebody that James had previously met whilst on a songwriting trip a year ago. As you all know, my initial thoughts on a Eurovision entry are based on first listen
and scored using the criteria of Eurovision jurors - no staging to be seen at that time (9.40am Thursday morning) so only three categories to score:
because that is how 99% of viewers and most of the jurors will be judging all the entries
as to whether they will pay money to vote or where they will place the track on their list
and scored using the criteria of Eurovision jurors - no staging to be seen at that time (9.40am Thursday morning) so only three categories to score:
Vocal Capability 4.5/5
Composition / Originality 3.0/5
Overall Impression 2.5/5
Score 10.0/15 (6.5)
All based on that first listen and I'll tell you why. It is clear that he has a great voice, a wonderful tone and eminently listenable - someone very close to him has gone as far as saying that James is a better singer than him...
I have to admit that John Newman singing some Northern Soul at the Contest would have been great, but I digress. As for the song itself, it really is split into two halves as I listened to it...
1-60 seconds : absolutely incredible, the acoustic guitar intro that merges into those powerful drum beats, accompanied by James' voice powering out that first verse, got me really excited with that listen. I was working but I felt my heart pounding and was waiting for the rest of the song to at least keep that going or even take me to higher levels of 'wow'! The first chorus dipped in intensity but that seemed to work in a counter-intuitive way and I liked the lyrical concept of providing the last breath as a metaphor for doing absolutely anything for the one you love.
60-155 seconds : Here is where my issue with the song itself was on first listen - my expectations that it would move on were quashed. The rest of the song got repetitive, dragged a bit and drifted away. The audible stimulation I got from that first minute evaporated and I felt almost cheated - I didn't get the journey I wanted!
Don't get me wrong, the whole was very pleasant - a nice listen, a song that didn't audibly annoy me (that is "Solovey" this year) and something I could find on Radio 2 or perhaps hear in the background of a tv show. That is probably what caused me to allocate those lower scores for Composition/Originality and Overall Impression - I felt I had heard this all before and recently too from other UK Eurovision entries:
"Bigger Than Us" and "Storm" - both sung by excellent singers who gave us the requisite amount of passion but whose songs, in among the other 25 entries in their respective Eurovision Finals, lacked impact throughout the song and had no real hook for anyone listening to remember it by. As everyone knows, that was the way to a bottom 5 song in the Final due to being passed over for more memorable songs and being everybody's "11th favourite". On that first listen yesterday, that was my fear for this year's entry and that is why I commented the way I did on the ESC FAN TV review that evening:
Now of course the one aspect I had yet to see from James Newman at that point was his live performing skills - we all knew he was an incredibly talented songwriter, getting multiple nominations and a Brit, providing material for plenty of top stars such as Jess Glynne, Little Mix, Sigala, Olly Murs and even Eurovision alumni Guy Sebastian, but had little idea of his singing. We have now had a very early taste of what James sounds like live and that was at a venue for invited guests and press, where someone from Attitude Magazine was good enough to film a snippet of his performance:
.@JamesNewmanUk performing #MyLastBreath live for the first time since being announced as this year’s UK @Eurovision entry.We’ve got a good feeling about this guy 👀🇬🇧 #Eurovisionpic.twitter.com/IJNni9bERi— Attitude (@AttitudeMag) February 27, 2020
Even though that was only 40 seconds long, it was in that final section that had originally given me concern and I was now very impressed. He has a very good live vocal, he provided a focus and exuded a charm that kept you watching, even putting together a basic performance in a venue that wasn't conducive to big shows. If James can really sell "My Last Breath" in a bigger arena, keep the focus on him and his delivery, then having a superb first minute might keep the viewer engaged and minimise how much the drift in intensity is noticed. All big matters to be sorted out before Rotterdam but hopefully the involvement of BMG will improve our entry's visibility around Eurovision, a factor severely limited when the BBC has been involved on their own. The last time that the PR for any Eurovision entry was maximised in recent memory was in 2009, when Baron Andrew Lloyd-Webber was involved with the whole process from the selection of Jade Ewen to accompanying her on the piano in Moscow. We got 5th place and it cannot hurt to repeat that saturation again, given that many UK fans have already labelled "My Last Breath" with the normally 'fatal' tag for any Eurovision song - "a grower".
Perhaps one of the top stage directors can be employed this year too - the one stand out visual over the past five years has been with Lucie Jones in Kyiv and something as spectacular as that might help James out. The official video has the snow covered forest theme plus Wim Hof in it and that looked wonderful - perhaps incorporating those ideas somehow might aid memorability in the Final? But don't go for the literal interpretation of those lyrics...
That's my LEP outfit sorted pic.twitter.com/NCWLpWMIK2— SuRie (@surieofficial) February 27, 2020
As I have just used SuRie's tweet for comic effect, it seems from the one interview I have seen of James (this morning on BBC Breakfast) that we have yet another Eurovision fan and somebody who is keen to promote the Contest, much like our artist from 2018. It isn't shown here but he stumped both interviewers by mentioning that his stand out Eurovision moment was Anouk singing "Birds" in Malmö - a refreshing change from "Euphoria". The only clip they had set up was of Bucks Fizz in 1981, to which he diplomatically said "Classic"!
He's written songs for artists like #EdSheeran and @JessGlynne.@JamesNewmanUk tells #BBCBreakfast he's not daunted by last year's result ⤵️— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) February 28, 2020
So we have yet another ambassador, someone who has a great voice, someone who seems comfortable on stage and yet arguably has a song that is lacking in that hook that can make it stand out, to make it stick in the mind of those voting, so that the UK gets points in Rotterdam. Should we still be looking at this moment as the start of a...
We will have to wait and see in May
I am hoping beyond hope that James Newman's first notable solo singing project is a success. He is an incredibly talented and successful songwriter but the question to be answered will be - can he be more successful than those singers at the beginning of their singing career we have had representing the UK, for instance in 2014 with Molly coming through the 'BBC Introducing' route and 2015-19 via the NFs? The most optimistic of UK fans are only talking about a mid table finish, no more than that, and even the people at BMG are only looking at an improvement from the right hand side over to the left hand side of the scoreboard. Is that really enough? I have to admit that I was hoping for more out of the BBC/BMG collaboration from the very start but that is not James Newman's fault - perhaps I just had unrealistic expectations of what we might get for this year in The Netherlands. So what is the answer to my title question?
Hopefully it is a new era in that James exceeds my expectations and supplies an unexpected placing in Rotterdam but I have a feeling that it might be 'more of the same'...