I studied that for ages, and thought: it’s all well and good learning to sing properly, but that won’t count for anything unless the melodies connect. I read a feature about the 50 catchiest songs ever – I think a track by Queen topped the list – which explored what made the songs so popular. “I looked at the small details in melodies, those details that can make a song so incredibly catchy. “I looked into the writing side of pop in some detail,” says the singer – and he is a singer, these days, having had lessons leading up to the recording of ‘Sempiternal’. He tells me that he quite deliberately set out to make this collection an instant-click experience, the sort of album that’d engage fans immediately and also creep into the conscious of those who might attempt to resist its charms through studied design and sublime execution. We’ve all been down these same dark alleys, and we’ve all bitten our lips instead of letting it out. (And if that’s not a sign of its pop qualities, I don’t know what is.) Its punches consistently connect, Sykes’ lyricism containing couplets that sing with a wide appeal. Indeed, it probably is my most-played album of the year. Yet everything on ‘Sempiternal’ is so perfectly polished, so exquisitely placed, that the constituents combine to form a release that ranks amongst my most-played of 2013 with ease. ![]() I know plenty who’ll consider it a hollow interpretation of their favourite musical form(s). I explained to doubting friends of mine that the record, to me, is like a kind of catnip: I know the structures aren’t rocket science, and I know the lyrics aren’t as deep as those of other, perhaps more credible rock acts. I can certainly hear that inspiration: compared to its predecessor, 2010’s ‘There Is A Hell…’, ‘Sempiternal’ strikes an immediate connection with a listener schooled in both hardcore and pop styles. It was inspired by popular music a great deal, actually.” “In a way, I hope that people do hear ‘Sempiternal’ as a pop record,” he says, “as while it’s a metal album at heart, it’s a metal album inspired by everything but metal, if you get what I mean. Yet, he readily acknowledges how the record can be heard that way. When I call Sykes to tell him that ‘Sempiternal’ is my personal pop album of 2013, I’m expecting a confused response. But it’s not only a pop hit in the sense that it’s popular – speak to its makers about the album’s creation, and it becomes clear that the Sheffield outfit’s intention was to deliver a record of far greater accessibility than anything that’d come before it.īring Me The Horizon, ‘Go To Hell, For Heaven’s Sake’, from ‘Sempiternal’ It also performed excellently in the US, making 11 on the Billboard 200. Yet, the album was a pop success on its release in April – it charted at three in the UK (going to number one on the domestic rock chart), and topped the pile in Australia. Indeed, to the ears of many it’s not pop at all: Bring Me The Horizon’s fourth album, ‘Sempiternal’ won in the Best Album category at the 2013 Kerrang! Awards, and the aggressive vocals of frontman Oliver Sykes aren’t entirely synonymous with what’s hot on any hit parade. And what I landed on perhaps isn’t the most obvious of choices. ![]() That activity, combined with the crunching of Clash’s Best Albums Of 2013 countdown (coming in December), got me thinking about my own pop record of the year.
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