"wet, wet with tears"

I'm telling you this Blubstep thing's got legs...

"Woon's next single, Lady Luck, is, he reveals, about whinging, something he does a lot. "I do it all the time, then I beat myself up for it. It's a vicious cycle of self-laceration. Why do I put myself down? So that it's harder for other people to do it." (from the Guardian's profile of Jamie Woon)

Meanwhile elsewhere in Blubstep, it's been well weird to watch the Blake Backlash. I've only listened to the album once, it didn't strike me as so bad. Does kinda make sense though (c.f. Darkstar) that it'd be harder to make the shift from Vocal Science to Proper Songwriting than these chaps might have imagined.

Perhaps it's the physical resemblance, but I keep thinking of Steve Winwood when I hear James Blake's voice. That perennial white Brit projection to Black America. As seen also with Woon's admiration for Lewis Taylor and the fact that he went to the same school, the Brit School, as Adele and Amy Winehouse.

This blubstep/soulboy connection in turn reminded me of that line in Scritti's Percy Sledge-citing "Gettin', Havin' and Holdin'"--"wet wet with tears"--a line that provided Wet Wet Wet with their name.

(I once interviewed Wet Wet Wet, believe it or not-- not Pellow, two of the other guys. Nice chaps actually. They had just done the "take us seriously please" album where they went out to Willie Mitchell's studio in Memphis to get a proper 70s soul sound).

How interesting that this thing the Brits have for Soul Music should be so imperishable and enduring--after five decades, still intact, still productive--to the point where it's virtually a structural fixture of UK popular culture.



(i'd rather have posted "Gettin Havin & Holdin'" or "Faithless" but amazingly neither are on YouTube)