Howard Billington - He Stole My Girl

Hear The Track Here

Now let's have a new name to us, or sort of a new name. Howard Billington has certainly made his presence felt in Soundclick's Critics Corner forum and a right friendly feller. Where the new name comes in is that although I have been aware of him for a while this is actually the first time I have ever heard any of his music. Drive-by listening seems to be a thing of the past for me. Although he has one of the most original and colourful images for his music I've ever seen, it is a sad fact that my eyes were drawn to his name by (gulp) a woman. An Asian woman as it happens and I have serious thing about those and this is probably, way, way too much information to you but I've been dying to ask...Who is she?

Now that we've taken care of my baser needs, I suppose I'd better get back to work...

I might not have heard the music but I've certainly taken notice of the string of excellent reviews he has garnered in the Corner, almost all of them glowing with praise from some serious SCCC review names such as Larry Ludwick, nixon1972 and others... I finally cranked up the track with images of smurfs, teletubbies and other assorted muppets roistering in my head, and I blame the artwork for that. If ever a track is worthy of the Britpop label, it'll be this one. Everything I liked about the Britpop scene comes alive under the very creative Mr Billington. Damn, I'm seriously impressed. Enough, I might add, to go romping through some other tracks from Welcome To The World, the album this is from. Definitely one of the freshest, sunniest, funniest musicians I have come across in a long, long while. Just such a shame it took me so long to catch up. Still, t'was ever thus eh?

If you are serious about pop (and Howard shows all the hallmarks) you'll know that it's prime exponent is the instant charge it gives you, even if you happen to hate pop music. It's the reason most people do hate pop music, damn stuff is like a persistent cold. Normally I'd be in that corner but when a track is this infectious my inner child comes bounding out to play. It's inventive instrumentally, there is a great banjo on show here and you don't hear that often in any genre. Overall though, the best impressions I came away with was the excellent performance, musically and vocally, and the absolutely blistering song the instruments and vocals convey. It has one of those choruses you cannot resist and I had no shame whatsoever in bellowing it out at every opportunity - to the consternation of many a passer-by.

MUST HAVE Britpop. Genius.