Fast and Fun "This Is My Demo" by Sway (DCypha) £13.99 Reviewed by Sylvie MD (age 12) Sway is a former student of my school, Highgate Wood. He hasn't even been signed to a label and yet he's still got a rep and a MOBO award. I believe anyone who can get that far doing it all by himself has to be pretty clever!
The things that I like about his music are that it's fast, funky and has meaning.
For example he sings about wife abuse, growing up and the changing modern world e.g. keeping up with all the new fashions, the struggle of work etc.
Sway brings modern issues into a fun fast garage CD. The Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not Billy Curtis No album release in living memory got as much free publicity as the Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. It featured on every major news programme and was written about In most of the national press.
The buzz around it helped it sell half a million copies in a week and a month later it's still near the top of the album chart.
The mystery is why. In recent years the really big selling artists have found commercial success by raising blandness to heights undreamed of by Perry Como... James Blunt, Coldplay, KT Tunstall, Jack Johnson and dozens like them.
The Arctic Monkeys take the opposite tack. Their musical ethos and production values seem borrowed from the Buzzcocks 1976 ep Spiral Scratch.
The opening track The View From the Afternoon kicks off with jagged, aggressive chords and a vocal that sounds like a comedy northerner and that's the way the album continues.
It's good raucous uncompromising stuff with witty lyrics. Emerging out of nowhere the Arctic Monkeys have wiped the floor with every other guitar based rock band just because they are so raw and unpolished but have great tunes that make you want to dance.