Vinyl Club: Leon Bridge's "Good Thing"

Maxwell, you and I welcome to vinyl club, first of all, actually. You and I are welcome to vinyl club. Thank you, Sam. I think more than welcome, I'd go so far as to say we run the place.

I would say we are the gatekeepers, the bouncers, and the venue owners and managers of vinyl club.

We check memberships, uh, you know, we check dress code, um, we also run the bar, uh, we have to do the plates from from the uh from the pass and the in the kitchen all the way out to the tables. There's a lot of roles we take on here at the club.

Yeah, we're the glassy, the bartenders, the cooks, the waiters, the sound guy, all of the above.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's uh we'd you know we're probably actually looking for some people to come on board to help us with the uh with the running of the of the place, but that's okay.

We really are. We can't pay you anything, but we can expose you to good music.

Okay, I was wondering where that was going, because it felt felt dangerous for a second. Don't come at me with that sort of pit-pata, Maxwell.

Tete, Sam. Tisk, tisk, you naughty boy. But you gave me some homework, Maximus, and I'm just gonna come out of well, actually, I should before I come out with my notes, I should probably tell the people what it is that we listened to, shouldn't I?

That would be a fun game. Can we go through the entire thing without describe telling them what it is, and then they have to figure out the end? Because that would be, I would say, for all of our reviews, really difficult for everyone.

Yeah, this artist that we're talking about today, we won't give you their name, nor will we give you their genre, we'll just give you the names of their songs, and you can go and research it in your own time. No, you gave me Good Thing by Leon Bridges, and this album is sexy. Boy, is it damn. This is this is music you can fuck to and I mean that not in a like it's just such a romantic, slow and intimate album.

It's not like it's not rough, passionate. Well it's passionate, but it's like not rough and raw. It's like it's not fun. I'm gonna no, it's like I'm going to love you in every way you could possibly imagine. And you're like, my ears are not ready, Mr.

Bridges. I'll tell you what, I'm getting a little hot under the collar over here. Holy shit.

Is that a bridges in your pants, or are you just Leon to see me? But it is so smooth, it's buttery, it blends all these different like soul and lounge and jazz vibes together. And if you're looking at me, Maxwell, over this Zoom meeting thinking he's looking down a lot, my notes are just here. He's got him, he's phoned up on the notes.

I am, and I've got my stupid fucking transmitter here, so I can't stand my phone up. I can't, I can't stand up.

But we've all had we've all had that trouble sometimes. Sometimes you just can't get it up, and you know what? It's fine.

Oh, yeah, honestly, you just have to own it.

Yeah, sorry. Have a little laugh together breaks the tension, I feel like helps a little bit.

Yeah. It bro, it's certainly your ego's already been broken, so you may as well break the tension.

Exactly. You know, and once you have a little laugh, the tension comes down, the pressure comes off, you know. Maybe sudden things start to you can put your phone up, you know.

Exactly. Yeah, just when you don't need to use your phone anymore, the mood's past, you can put it up, and you're like fuck. Like I said, this album, it's his second album, his debut album, Coming Home, was a lot more blues and roots and sort of jazzy and a bit like upbeat jazz. It wasn't loungy, sort of sexy vibes, it was very much upbeat, kind of funky.

Not quite my cup of tea, but this second album, um, like I said, it's soulful, it's loungy, and it kind of shows off his dynamic range through the album as well. But I'd like to preface, I really enjoyed this album, front to back, and I feel like it is the perfect vinyl album. So when people hear us say that, they're like, of course it's a fucking vinyl album, it's on wax dickhead.

This is vinyl play. I mean, yeah. No fucking shit. Um we mean you it's a great album to have on vinyl to leave playing and then just walk away. Perfect for it.

To have experience to experience around you without necessarily going, I want to listen to this song.

Yeah, which is also a way of us saying it's a very well-balanced album. So, anyway, not that people were coming for us in the comments, but just fucking cool your jets.

If this is your first vinyl club, they're not usually this hostile, but you know. You know what? Fuck the listen I was just giving.

He's a bit wound up this morning. He hasn't uh he hasn't leoned his bridges. Um but going through track by track, Bet Ain't Worth the Hand was honestly a perfect start. I really liked this song. The little bells and kind of chimes at the beginning made me feel like I was about to listen to Peter Pan sound like the soundtrack for Peter Pan.

It's kind of fairy tale-y, you know what I mean?

Yeah, that's fair.

That's fair. And then it breaks into this really smooth. I don't want to call it jazz, and I don't want to call it um like soul. It kind of sits in that weird that weird middle ground, and I compared this album a lot to someone like Daniel Caesar, where he's not soul, he's not pop, he's not jazz, but he blends them all together in this kind of weird, it's almost like soulful RB.

Yeah, I think RB does a lot of that. Um it's like as an umbrella term, because you know, people our age might associate RB with like your mid-2000s kind of R B. Like your usher and that kind of stuff. But I feel like as a historical term, RB often captured more of this kind of sound where it was like croony, soulful, part rock, part blues, part lounge.

Like it had a bit of everything. So this is kind of RB in that older like 60s, 70s kind of style.

A hundred percent. No, it very much is. And I think, yeah, once you think RB sort of spread out, well, is um rhythm and blues. You're like, You did say it's a romantic album, so yeah. Like a good footy game.

Fucking spread it.

But yeah, it's very rhythm and blues. I think when I keep saying RB, don't think new age RB with scissor and all of them think rhythm and blues. But better ain't worth the hand, incredible way to start. And then it goes into Bad Bad News, which is sort of more jazzy pop, um, with still those soulful elements, and that little solo at the end is just if you're not into jazz, this is a song to start with.

Because holy shit, you get to the end of it and you're like, oh my god, stop it. Who knew brass could be so seductive? Man, I talk about the horn section. Speaking of horned, tellier than a Roman sandal over here. But then Shy, another one that I really liked. I ended up saving three or four different songs from this album, which is sometimes rare air for us on vinyl club, coming from two different musical tastes.

But Shy in particular reminded me very much of Daniel Caesar. That that slow RB atmospheric, like, I'm gonna make you call me daddy even though you're shy. Damn. That's this song. That is that song. Like, come over, I know you're shy, I'll take care of you, baby. You're like, Leon, stop it. Um, but the guitar riff, when it starts, that little guitar if is so infectious, it's so catchy.

Um and then once you get through that, you're like, okay, I'm hot and heavy, I'm ready to go have a shower and cool off before I go to family dinner. Cold shower. Cold shower, obviously, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not coming into the family dinner hot and heavy. I'm coming into the family dinner ready to play board games. I've left the mood at the door. A loose-fitting pants, probably, you know. Probably, yeah. We don't need any friction adding to the problem. Um but then it jumps to beyond, which is this very much like early 2000s vibe that when we said don't think of RB as that like poppy element, this song very much is that early pop element.

It's stripped back, it's raw, it kind of like it reminded me of almost like Craig David-ish, kind of like that Brit infused RB at times, how it was simple, they relied on the voice rather than sort of the the soundscape to tell the story. It was all voice-driven, so that was really cool. Yeah, um, and then similar again.

I'm gonna jump around the album a bit now, but if it feels good, again, poppy, funky, early 2000s RB, and really sort of shows off a new side to Leon Bridges that we didn't get to see with the first album. And then he just decides to fuck it and find out and do a bunch of different random shit. So you've got Forgive You, which is this powerful sort of anthemic piano ballad that finishes with this huge sort of guitar outro that's spacious and atmospheric, and then he goes to Lions, which is jazz like dive bar sort of loungy vibes, and then he goes to You Don't Know, which is 90s pop almost, with the way it has affected vocals and Cynthia guitars, that's hard to say.

Um and it's kind of like borderline dance pop at times with RB, it's sexy, but it's fun. You can have a dance to it. I pictured you like bopping your shoulders. Exactly. Daddy. And that is how I make love. It's just Max in the corner going, Daddy! It's just all shoulder action. You like that? You'll like it when I pogo.

Honestly. If it's good for the Mormons, someone has to jump on the bed. Jesus. Yeah, that's that's what I'm here for. Just face the wall while you jump, Sam. Um then going to the back end, ooh no. With consent. Yeah, if you both agree that that's what you want to explore, then that's okay. Um the back end of the album misses, is raw, it's stripped back, and it's that it's back to that sort of when you picture Leon Bridges, that's kind of the sound that everyone associates with his artistry.

And then Georgia to Texas, the end of the album, it's very, it feels very earthy and grounded. Um it's warm, it's soulful, and it kind of in a weird way, he's talking about like he's I assume like touring across America and coming back home and all that stuff. It reminded me of a soul RB version of coming home by city in colour.

Mm-hmm.

Yep, yep, I can see that. The same kind of like melancholy, mournful, yet optimistic, like I love what I do, but fuck I hate it at the same time.

Yeah, yeah. That bit of sweetness to it.

Yeah, and it kind of reminded me of that romantic not romantic era, but there's this romance in films around, you know, the the early sort of America where, you know, particularly in the South before all the the traumatic stuff, or after, you can tell me if my timelines are wrong, but where they were, you know, playing a lot of music and they were developing kind of roots and blues, and it was a very culturally um diverse and important time in American history, and in movies they romanticized that.

And this song I feel like would have been the soundtrack to one of those movies.

Yeah, yeah. I think the the key thing that Leon Bridges does with this record is I think he's he's wearing these influences on his sleeve in the way of like he's he's it's people like Otis Redding and Sam Cook and Marvin Gaye, but then he's also bringing it into a more recent version of RB with people, probably probably maybe Craig David, maybe people who are kind of in that sort of early two late 90s, early 2000s, like boys to men through to like you know, T Pain kind of era of R B.

And I feel like he's gone all of this encompasses like the music that inspired me, and I'm gonna play with all of it at various points.

100%. And the storytelling element is something that really separates Leon Bridges a lot from normal R B and soul. I feel like you know, Daniel Caesar in the modern day, you're like, okay, the boys is talking about fucking, and Leon Bridges, if there's feels like there's more context and more depth to his songs, and you can, like you said, Otis Redding and people like that, you're like, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Um so yeah, I feel like when you listen to it, it's sexy, it's sleek, it's smooth, but then there's a lot of depth that actually hooks you into the story. You think of a song like Texas Sun, which he does with Kerungbin, like there's something just that's gotta be the best driving song of all time.

It's it's up, it's fucking well up there, I'll tell you that much.

Oh, like Route 66, Sunset, Convertible, Texas Sun playing.

Windows down, heat haze on the on the tarmac.

Oh, fuck me up. But overall, I really enjoyed it, to be honest. I will revisit it for sure because I mean he is not only an incredible vocalist, but he's an incredible songwriter. And I'm very keen to see him on the banks next year. Um Feb March.

I think he might be the Feb end, but you know what? I'm sitting in front of a computer. I can I can Google that.

You can go hey Jamie, pull that up. Um yeah, I'd be very keen to see what songs he pulls out of that album, plays on on stage, and how they sort of translate live. Because I feel like sometimes those sorts of sounds can be hit and miss live, but his voice would do much of the heavy lifting.

I've I've seen him live before uh here in Brizzy, and he sounds exactly the same. He his voice is that that's just his voice. And it's interesting, some of the songs that he brings to life, he like he brings his band with them, but I think there's there's so much as you said, like he plays with so many different sounds.

I don't think he could bring everyone that he needs to rebuild every single sound. So it's kind of interesting to see how they adapt uh some of these uh songs and some of these uh sounds to the live stage, but he nails it, he nails a Texas Sun, he nails it beyond, uh, you know, like he he brings enough to make sure that when you when you hear those big iconic ones, you're like, oh shit, like he is exactly how he sounds on the on the record.

It's just insulting when they can do that, isn't it?

I mean, I if I had like one Scaric of talent, uh that he the amount that he has.

I was thinking listening to this, if I could sing that well, I wouldn't shut the fuck up. No, absolutely not. I'll be like, karaoke, yeah. Let me show you. Yeah, let me just put on a little whatever. Yeah. Have you got any I don't know, opera? I can nail that, I can do anything. But Maxwell, I've gone a little bit different for your homework.

Ooh, load me up here. Oh Daddy Father. Instead of a record, I've gone through my C D collection. Damn, C D's nuts, Sam. C D's nuts. And honestly, you'd prefer to do that if I give you one of these options. Um, I've got two options for you because I've been one is newsworthy, the other one I've just been listening to, and I'm like, fuck, that album rules, and I forgot how much depth this album has.

So one of them's nickelback. Yeah, one of them's nickelback. So I'm gonna give you the other one, but I'm just gonna show you what you could have had. Okay. So you could have had all the right reasons by nickelback. Featuring songs like Photograph, Animals, Faraway, Savin' Me, If Everyone Cared, Rockstar.

That's one, two, three, four, five. That's six singles on a 12, 11-song album. Right. This could have been this is their highest-selling album.

This I mean you can still give it to me. It's you get to you get to uh allocate to this week.

No, I won't do that because you'd rather kill yourself than do this.

Um hey, I I've as I've said before, nickelback are a completely fine band.

But I can't wait to see them with you. That'll be fun. I'm gonna spend so much money on merch. I'm gonna give my money to you and be like, I'm gonna queue up. This is what I want. You go and buy me that, I'll get this, and then we'll combine. I'm gonna buy so many shirts.

Setting at the nickel back of the room, just have just arms folded to have the greatest day of your life.

Oh, yeah, I'm going GA for sure. Oh, far out. Start a pit to animals. Oh. But no, I've I've been doing a bit of research onto this next album that I'm gonna give you. And when this album dropped, it took over the world. Singles like Sex on Fire, You Somebody, like they took over the world, put rock back on the map, and it is of course Only by the Night by Kings of Leon.

And I was listening through the rest of the album, this shit slaps.

You know what? I my like I quite like a bit of Kings of Leon. Uh obviously, I've never, you know, you know the big singles like the ones you just shouted out. I don't think I've ever taken a deep dive on the that full record though. So it'd be good to actually finally get around to it.

Yeah, songs like Closer, um, Revelry, Be Somebody, just a great storytelling rock album. So much so that I'm just realizing now it came out in 2008. Yeah. And they've got kingsofleon.com, and then I'll just I'll hold this up to the camera.

myspace.com forward slash Kings of Leon. Hell yeah, brother.

Hell yeah, brother.

We should I'm gonna check if it's still available, if that still loads. myspace.com forward slash kings of Leon still loads. Wow, not well, but it loads.

So have fun with that. It's genuinely an incredible album. Right. Yeah, I think you'll enjoy it.

Okay, well, I'll uh you know what? I'm looking forward to it. We'll we'll dig through it next week. Listeners, if you have uh thoughts that you want to share about it, slide into the DMs. Send us some notes. We'd love to get some of your opinions up in this. Up in this. Up in old at. Uh Sam, any vinyl thoughts for the week?

Uh no, Maxwell, not a lot of money to be spent on records at the moment because there are tours coming out the fucking Wazoo. Nickelback announced a tour in a year's time, and they're like, oh, so we're gonna bring Don Broco as well, and then uh we're gonna put tickets on sale in a week. Yeah, F of the F of the S and also F of the A.

Um, Friends of the Show in Don Broco, but the tickets being on sale within a week. Fucked up the ass.

I think we said friends of the account.

Oh yeah, friends of the account's probably more PG. That's what I said. Uh what about you, Maxwell?

Uh I got a bit silly in the last week and spent a fair amount of money on vinyls uh that I'm hoping will land soon. Um so I reckon I've I've I've picked up I've picked up Maddie's uh recent album. I've picked up Slater's worst girl in America. Um I've picked up a fair few in that kind of that realm, that ilk.

So I reckon um hang tight as they land and you'll you'll see some of these popping up into the club soon. That Maddiean album is gonna be zerk. You you know it. You know it. You know it. Mate, your brain full of that information.

Well, Maxwell, take us out with uh a nice little message to the people.

Just just keep just just just keep on listening. Just listen up. Just turn it up. Please.

Vinyl Club: Leon Bridge's "Good Thing"

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