Oh, Songbird – Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

I love songs that ignore the boundaries of musical genres. Tunes where the artist seems to have mixed all manner of sounds and styles, like a magpie stealing whatever shiny sonic things have caught their ear to build a unique  musical nest. Oh, Songbird, the new one from Johnny Manchild and the Poor Bastards (an excellent name for a band, by the way), is exactly that.

If you were to draw a Venn Diagram to describe this song, it would feature circles representing pop infectiousness and rock swagger, new wave outsiderness and indie groove, and at the point where all of those meet, you would find a pin in the page with their name on it.

And like all songs worth their salt, it is a song that has something to say, a reminder that no matter how dark things get, how many clouds gather on the horizon, how much personal trauma and more central, societal concerns you find yourself burdened with, things will get better. They have to.

But even if you don’t read that much into the song, if you are here for entertainment more than education, it is a song that rocks but remains accessible, which grooves as effortlessly as it glides along, which balances melody and muscle. It’s pop music made with a rock attitude. Take note, people, this is what the modern charts should sound like. You know what to do.