It really would be remiss of me if, after bleating for so long about the joys of the bedroom-recorded song, I was to feature new bands that had recorded their songs in, you know, a studio or something fancy like that.
Fortunately, it’s frighteningly easy to find new music recorded in a corner of a scruffy bedroom, with only a laptop and a USB mic for company.
It’s harder, of course, to find songs that are actually good, but that’s why I have 650 emails from new bands in my inbox and also why I lay awake at night wondering how I’ll listen to them all.
Still, whilst songs as rag-tag and joyfully gauche as Only Real’s Cadillac Girl keep popping up, I know it’s all still worthwhile.
The unparalleled thrills of the bedroom-recorded song is acutely clear in Cadillac Girl – here’s the gritty, grimy and garbled reality of music recorded quickly, enthusiastically and with the sincere need of the young and hungry.
It’s a song brimming with confidence – the comfort in slowing the pace to suit their own ends, and allow the half-spat, half sung words to spring forth from a DIY-framework.
Some bands would shy away from these rough edges. Only Real embraces them for what they are: their own reality. Excellent.