Jason Downs - Bitch of the Week

by Kelly Smith

published: 12 / 11 / 2011

Label: Bitch White Records
Format: CDS

Catchy first single in a decade from anti-authoritative American singer Jason Downs, which nevertheless finds him resting on past successes

Review

I wouldn’t be lying to you if I told you that I still have ‘White Boy with a Feather’ on my iPod. This was the last we heard from Jason, and it was a whole decade ago when it was released. An entire decade and I’m still listening to it, and loving every second. Because of various reasons cited by Jason himself ("bad managers, controlling producers and ultimately Jive Records being sold") he has been away from the music business for a while, but he has finally returned with his latest offering ‘Bitch of the Week’. It’s inevitable that after a decade, the boy who brought us “White Boy with a Feather” would have grown into a man. Based on his one previous song I had heard, the sound of new single ‘Bitch of the Week’ is quintessential Jason. Relaxed country drawl, heavy on the percussion, jangly guitar rhythm. It’s a formula that worked before and it’s bound to work again now Jason is a grown up. Right? Hmm. The thing is, according to my extensive research (Wikipedia), Jason is now almost forty years old. There’s nothing wrong with this, obviously, but since the topic of the song is an anti-9-5, bollocks-to-the-establishment, I-will-not-let-the-man-get-me-down kind of affair, it is starting to border ever so slightly on mid-life crisis. I understand wholeheartedly his intentions and I even agree with the sentiment, but I feel that if Jason had truly wanted to mature into someone with stories to tell, he should have grown up enough to realise he can’t keep singing about the same stuff he would have at twenty five. That said, ‘Bitch of the Week’ is a genuinely catchy track which I’m sure fans and new listeners will love. I’m not sure it will become a chart-topping hit, but for anti-establishment Jason Downs, that’s probably just fine with him.