Kate Nash – fad, or just bad?

Actually, both will suit Apache just fine.

As the countdown to the BRIT awards begins, there are some interesting nominations, the most offensive of which is Kate Nash in the British Female Solo Artist category.

Kate Nash’s route to stardom is a quaint little tale of rejection and injury (not just for the people unlucky enough to hear her sing). Young Kate was an aspiring actor, who applied to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School – sadly she was rejected (she has not been forthcoming as to why), and went to watch Ang Lee’s masterpiece Brokeback Mountain to quell her sadness. Whilst there she fell down a flight of stairs and broke her – no, not back – but foot.

It was during her healing time that Miss Nash decided to pursue a career in music and uploaded songs onto social networking site MySpace. Fast-forward to her asking Lily Allen to champion her on the web, and recording a dire first single “Caroline’s a Victim” (YouTube video here…if you dare) that somehow got her signed.

Then came her second single, the so-called smash hit, “Foundations”.

It was while Monsieur Apache was sitting at a piano one day that the illusion of Kate Nash came crumbling down. He struck a C chord, and this triggered something – this was the first chord of “Foundations”, which was getting inescapable airplay at the time. Referring to the Youtube video, Monsieur Apache soon unravelled the secrets of Miss Nash’s songwriting…or rather the simplicity of it.

It was just C, F and G-major chords!

All the way through. The solitary modulation was an A-minor in the chorus (possibly forced by the record label?) . No complexity.

(Explainer: C is the middle note of the piano, and gives the easiest key and scale because there are no accidentals [black notes on the keyboard]). This is the first thing you learn on the piano; young Apache learned it at the age of seven.

Such musical simple-mindedness is astounding in a nominated artist, especially as Nash is so proud of being a “singer/songwriter”. If musicality were valued, then she’d be dismissed for lack of anything approaching the originality of other piano-based singer/songwriters such as Regina Spektor or Ben Folds.

What is the difference between Kate Nash and these others? It would seem to be her “excruciatingly crispy clear vocals” (NME, June 18, 2007). That’s one way to describe her voice; another would be to say that it’s an irritating cockney drawl from the Skinner/Allen school of enunciation. Apache’s friend _______ went to school with Nash, and told me one evening that it’s all deliberate – a clever ruse to jump on the regional accent bandwagon.
It’s not just the accent though; it’s the lack of imagery, metaphor, and wordplay in her lyrics. See fellow BRIT nominee Bat for Lashes or PJ Harvey for the real thing.

All is not lost however. Apache discovers that her supposed smash hit “Foundations” made it to number one only in Croatia (the hub of all good music, surely?), but regrettably the media-receptive British did buy enough copies of Nash’s album Made of Bricks for it to reach number one, despite several bad reviews. But it dropped very quickly, and is not even in the top 40 at the moment. Perhaps the public are beginning to hear those simple chords.

Monsieur Apache hopes that the regional accent trend will pass, and that the “Skins”-watching generation will realise they’re being spoon-fed fad after fad. Let’s hope that on February 20th either Natasha Khan (Bat for Lashes) or the memorable PJ Harvey will take the BRIT award for solo female singer.

Come on, music fans – look for talent!