Owen Kennedy – Bollox Blues (2021)
It took me about a year or two to make the connection. I was sitting in the back of a university class reading an article on a new autobiography highlighting new details about the life of Nick Drake. It wasn’t until I scrolled down to a letter written by Drake from 1969 to his father talking about his desire to leave Cambridge that it triggered a connection in my mind I felt compelled to write about.
Before introducing this I think it’s worth noting that perhaps as much as any other artist, at least to my understanding, Nick Drake only ever really became Nick Drake years after he died. Whether this is because his music required more time than others to appreciate, or that his premature death may have inadvertently helped his ‘legend -’ I think it’s fair to say he was never acknowledged by a large mass critically at the time and certainly not commercially. But his soft folk songs ring of quaint Englishness and his mellow but complicated personality – both of which contribute to music that is endearing, delicate and complex. The reason I acknowledge this is that in my mind after reading Nick Drake’s letter from Cambridge, it alerted me to another artist from Cambridge who I do not know personally at all, yet who I feel bears many similarities both in their relative wistful, melancholic music and their small levels of recognition when they were/are playing.
Around early 2022, via word of mouth, I stumbled across a recommendation of up-and-coming artists, the first of which went by the name of Owen Kennedy. Once I went to listen I discovered his latest album released in 2021 titled, Bollox Blues. After that point, I didn’t realise how incessantly I had listened to it and failed to appreciate it until the end of the year listening statistics came out when Owen was placed at Number 2 for the year. Someone who I thought was just another one of the many standard small-time bedroom pop artists had actually grown to be one of the most intriguing and special artists I had heard. I began to realise that much like Drake, Kennedy had an extremely unique gift for combining cathartic, melancholy music coupled with soft, poignant lyrics and unique vocal delivery. It stands above much of the music I’ve heard for complete honesty and openness. As time progressed with no knowledge of the person or meaning behind the songs, the curtain began to open ever so slightly revealing the dark rawness that the album is about. In parts, the songs are probably the saddest I’ve ever heard but they’re also beautifully moving and comforting.
On every song, Kennedy manages to strike a perfect balance layering his subtle instrumentation to a genuine poem of grief, sadness, memory, pity, frustration, desperate escapism and nostalgia. It reads and sounds exactly how it is – a pure and authentic outpouring of pain and reflection. While the array of different instruments stands out among beautiful melodies, it’s some of the lyrics, deciphered after many listens, which bite hardest. The entirety of ‘many ways’ is a flawless example of this. As is ‘messenger’: “i never said it to your face, but god it still feels like I can. I never saw you every day, but now it feels like I am..”
On the album, Kennedy reminds us of the impermanence of life, what is special about our existence and what is painfully cruel. I believe he has articulated one of the fundamental aspects of humanity, woven in his own modern upbringing and experience, and condensed it into a piece of music and poetry. While many have undoubtedly attempted this in the past, the songs are too authentic, emotional and numbingly perfect to ignore. It often leaves a hollow feeling, yet it also fills you up.
I’m well aware drawing a comparison to such a symbol like Nick Drake is a big leap, and even potentially uncomfortable. I only say it because in this day and age, there are many independent artists who make music in their rooms, and many will fall by the wayside. Most of those will be bad, but some will be good, and some will be special. If Nick Drake was making music today in his bedroom, would his music and legacy have survived all these years later? I’m not sure. Would he dare have been recognised as an amazing artist today? If he were to die at such a young age again now, would anyone remember his genius? This article maybe could help eliminate the possibility for those who are of the same ilk as such special musicians and artists. It’s easy to make that call as to one’s quality many years later, as many now do historically looking back at Drake’s legacy, but I believe Owen Kennedy has made an album to the equal of some of these great artists.
This isn’t a perfect analogy and I know music writers are prone to hyperbole. Cult artists like Nick Drake are obsessed over and exaggerated to the point where it’s probably gone too far. I’m not trying to obsess over this, I just think it’s really good.
For more from Owen Kennedy, check out his Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
