‘This Isn’t Your Average Song’ – So give it a listen
This 10-minute-long spoken word song comments on the challenges of being a music artist in the modern world. It’s relatable, passionate and witty – but make sure you listen to the end!
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26-year-old Jamie Felton from Oxford wrote this unconventional long form rap to highlight the difficulties of navigating the music industry. The eerie chord changes, hard-hitting lyrics and intense delivery help create the persona of a beyond frustrated musician.
The scenarios Jamie refers to in the song are all too familiar for wannabe or emerging artists. For example, being told “it’s not what you know it’s who you know”, the difficulty of trying to sell tickets to a show when they can see you in the local pub for free and of course, the dreaded “Sing Wonderwall”!
The character that Jamie presents in the song seems to be yearning for the past and simpler times, in terms of being an artist and the way that music is consumed. For instance he references the need for a big social media presence, having to fit into pop culture and the requirement to constantly try new things in order to stand out.
“Every single writer, performer and ‘tryer’ of music will be able to relate to this monologue of honesty, rejection and self-deprecation, representing the daily grind required to sound the tiniest of drops in the musical pond that is the entertainment business”
– Jamie Felton
However, when you get to the end of the song, you realise the brutal assessment of how modern society has brainwashed the artform of music is actually not what Jamie really feels at all! He explains that the song up to that point was a parody and he was portraying a fictional character of a snobby and bitter musician. The lyric that perfectly captures the overall message of the song is “If it sounds good, it is good, so leave off with the technical derision”.
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