This Is The One – Adam Wedd (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

After writing about Adam Wedd’s capitalisation-challenged album pop goes the indie kid, I knew that he was an artist whose music would always be welcome under my pen …well, keyboard. And with the new single, THIS IS THE ONE (ahh, too far the other way with regard to capitalisation), dropping into the review pile, I was keen to see what he had done next.

pop goes the indie kid contains a wonderful blend of musical styles, often within the same song. Here, THIS IS THE ONE (my spell checker hates me) takes a slice of solid rock punch, actually, make that anthemic rock punch, adds in some pop accessibility and almost pushes things into dance-infused territory…not something that would be regarded as dance, genre-wise but something actually much more infectious, addictive and, well, dance-inducing. Ha, take that dance music!

There is also something wonderfully subversive, almost self-deprecating, about the track lyrically. Wedd is not singing from a simple narrative point of view. No, he’s saying that this song is a placeholder for a story, the one we all know and have heard before. Perhaps a scenario so familiar that he doesn’t even have to describe it to us; we all know how it goes. (Think Tenacious D’s Tribute, only wry and smart rather than trying too hard to be funny.)

Adam Wedd is a clever guy. He writes infectious songs without resorting to the obvious. His approach is intelligent and well thought out, but never aloof. He is never above his material or his audience; he just does things differently. He writes songs that often come from left field or feel like an exercise in lateral thinking. And then he bolts those ideas onto the most infectious music possible, making the whole thing both lyrically entertaining and sonically addictive.

We need more Adam Wedds in the music world right now.