Jay Foreman: 20 Songs
Artist: Jay Foreman
Album: 20 Songs
Rating: * * * *
Everybody loves a laugh, right? York’s resident musical comedian Jay Foreman has been cashing in on this fact since 2005 when a charity fundraising idea got big. Four CDs later, including a recently released ‘Best Of’, Jay has become something of a campus legend. No, let me clarify - just a legend. The song ‘Moon Chavs’ has generated a bit of a cult following in students across the country, as a quick search of YouTube testifies. But it’s not only students who are fans of Jay’s; the BBC showed considerable interest in ‘20 Songs for Free’, the show he brought to last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Jay confesses that he “loves to make people laugh at things they shouldn’t find funny”, and 20 Songs, a compilation of the best songs from his previous three CDs, does just that. Titles such as ‘Chained to a Radiator’ and ‘Stealing Food’ give a feel of what’s in store, although nothing can fully prepare you for the gleeful, yet slightly guilty, feeling the album will leave you with. The songs range from the downright silly (‘Spirograph’ and ‘Balloon’) to the lewd and terribly funny (‘Buggery Club’). And somewhere along the way Jay touches upon more sensitive issues in ‘Little Japanese Baby’ and ‘No Christmas’ where his skillful wit and complete lack of taste give way to dry humour.
Jay ventures into mildly political territory with ‘Calypso’ and attempts a “non-funny” song in ‘Hundred Perfect Days’. This, with a catchy guitar riff and melancholic melody, works well; if it’s a little out of place among 19 comic songs then it’s heartfelt words and musicality are all part of the charm.
Jay’s arrangements are simple and primarily acoustic, using mostly guitar, with occasional synthesizers. If you manage to catch him live you’re in for a treat because as good as the album is, when it comes to comedy, live performance can’t be bettered. Be warned though, this album is hardly a tasteful work. But who cares? At £5 (only 25p a song, he points out) Jay capitalises on our guilty pleasures and so we must thank him.
