Chris Ford - Good Morning America

  by Adrian Janes

published: 16 / 6 / 2016

Label: Cooking Vinyl
Format: CD

intro

Third album from British singer-songwriter Chris Ford which is political and personal but not indispensable

‘Good Morning America’ is split between Chris Ford’s take on current affairs and the affairs of his heart. Unfortunately, though he’s commendably trying to raise his voice (at a time when, as he later observes, so many in pop and rock “Say Nothing”), he’s much more convincing as a troubadour than a pundit. The title track, with its “How are you going to make us feel today?’ line, concerns America’s centrality in the world, and American influence is unmistakably embedded in Ford’s music. Despite the song’s catchy yet melancholic melody, in the end it’s a somewhat bland soft-rock, like a Byrds track that doesn’t really take flight. The environmental anxiety of ‘Digging Our Own Graves’ is cutely masked by the way the title is poppily repeated in the chorus.It does make the listener do an aural double-take, but it’s doubtful if evoking the Rubettes does justice to the message. ‘Say Nothing’, driven by hard guitar and drums and overwritten by spidery synth, certainly makes the most impact amongst the political tracks. There’s some righteous condemnation of the shallowness of much popular culture (“Is Liberty a statue or a fashion brand?”), and Ford takes particular aim at an A-list of music stars, from Rihanna to Coldplay, while lamenting “Where have all the Dylans and the Springsteens gone?” But his voice is essentially mellifluous, so despite the music’s power the end result feels like a harangue from a really angry Liberal Democrat. ’Hard to Believe’ is the hinge of the album. The last of the socially conscious numbers, its acoustic guitar, piano and cello instrumentation make a better setting for Ford’s kind of voice: he brings out the pathos of trying, and failing, to make sense of a contradiction-riddled world. The remainder of the album is a group of acoustic-dominated romantic ruminations. Some are plaintive and pretty, such as ‘Lovefalls’ and the McCartneyish ‘Moving out of View’, while others like ‘FYI’, ‘Into the Blue’ and the mawkish ‘Genevieve’ seem tailor-made for Radio 2 in their inoffensiveness, and somewhat undermine the credibility of ‘Say Nothing’. Similarly, the title ‘The Warp Glass’ shouldn’t deceive fans of left-field experimental labels, being yet another perspective on lovelorn regret. With its chilly guitar touches, ’A Little Rain Must Fall’ is a little more distinctive than many of the other songs of this ilk on the album, and it also effectively shadows the voice on the chorus. At heart, though, it remains very competent pop-rock, no less but no more. If ‘Good Morning America’ was envisaged as a wake-up call, by the end it’s time for bed.

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