nixsight

There’s an interesting thing that happens when you fall in love with someone, at least if you are me and you fall in love with someone…

As the relationship begins, whether you realise it or not, you go through the process of trying to work out where your personalities fit, and where they don’t, tentatively trying to pick your way through the simple, tiny things that make a life shared with another human being go as smoothly as possible. After getting your fingers lightly burnt a couple of times with poorly received initial explorations into no man’s land, you realise which battles you can afford to avoid altogether…

For example, a storyline in a tv show you are both watching raises the subject of prostitution, and your subsequent off-the-cuff gag teaches you swiftly that prostitutes are not considered a viable ”me-time” diversion, and so you avoid that particular bullet with minimum stress to everyone…

(You shouldn’t assume, by the way, that this suggests a completely negative outlook on the subject… now isn’t the time to, say, mention the dead hookers in your basement, in an attempt to gain brownie points. Just ‘cos they don’t want you using them, doesn’t mean they think they should all be exterminated, apparently. I mean, probably…)

This process is very important when it comes to music and movies… frankly, if she despises Peter Andre, it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you won’t get her to enjoy your box-set of his greatest hits, and you’ll only put the relationship under strain if you do. If you’re me (yes, I know I’ve already forced that particular roleplay on you once this post), you’ll try and be as honest and open about this process as possible, rather than lying and then finding yourself frantically explaining your secret stash of non-porn Paris Hilton DVDs at some later date… after all, we don’t all have to like the same thing, and if you love each other, you should be able to live with having these aesthetic exclusion zones…

Sometimes, though, if you love the person enough that life feels good when you’re around them, everything starts to sound or look good in their proximity, and after a while you might start to lose track, and have to really listen hard to stuff to work out if you really love it, or you just love it because the other person does… This isn’t “faking it”, as such… it’s just the knack that euphoria has of sweeping everything up and carrying it along with it…

(Like in the hospital when they gave me medical-grade morphine for my kidney stones, and suddenly the act of puking all night and being wheeled out for the same x-rays three times because my body was taking a worrying amount of time circulating the barium took on this weird kind of rosy complexion…)

All of which is my long-winded way of saying that, having listened several times to Ali Whitton‘s music, most recently including his new EP (with the BrokeRecordPlayers) Empty Threats and Recurring Themes, I’m actually pretty sure that I love it on it’s own merits, not just because my wonderful girl is, like, his biggest fan in the whole wide world.

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Ali Whitton - The One I Love
(Not my favourite, but to hand…)

Superficially fitting the currently popular “acoustic sounds with oh-so-deep male vocal” trend, Ali’s voice and lyrics are so heartfelt, often cynical and beautifully sad that he just seems more honest than the rest – it’s going to seem crass when I’d struggle to name examples, but a lot of the guys producing this stuff sound like they’re coming up with the hook and then fitting mix-and-match 6th form lyrics to it till it sounds like it’s meaningful and personal until you examine it properly.

Put another way, Ali Whitton sounds like he’s trying to explain something to you, whereas James Blunt sounds like he’s trying to pull using the old “so tortured” saw…