Jamie T | ||
| Allmusic Biography : With his appealingly laid-back hip-hop vocal phrasing and an eclectic bedroom D.I.Y. musical palette, Jamie T. comes across like the love child of the Streets Mike Skinner and Badly Drawn Boys Damon Gough. His clever pop sense is his own, however, and keeps the South Londoner from sounding like a mashup of his influences, which range from vintage Jamaican ska to the Beastie Boys, via Tina Turner and the Clash. Born Jamie Alexander Treays in Wimbledon in 1986, Jamie T. grew up in multicultural London, absorbing a variety of musical styles while attempting to create his own. Abandoning the guitar as too difficult to play while singing, Jamie T. first picked up the electric bass before a friend gifted him with a hand-me-down standup acoustic model. While playing solo bass-and-vocals gigs, Jamie T. also started recording his own one-man-band home tracks, eventually debuting with the "Salvador" 7" single in 2004, followed by the Betty & the Selfish Sons EP, both on his own Pacemaker Records imprint. Alongside gigs with increasingly hot London acts like the Mystery Jets, Jamie T. got an instant leg up when Damon Albarn chose him to remix the Gorillaz single "Kids with Guns." Signing to Gorillazs label, Virgin, Jamie T. put together a full-band lineup for live gigs and released two more singles in 2006, "Sheila" and "If Youve Got the Money," as he prepared his debut album, Panic Prevention, released in early 2007. The single "Calm Down Dearest" reached number nine in the U.K. that year. After touring and festival slots during 2007 and 2008, he returned to the charts in mid-2009 with the single "Sticks n Stones," a teaser for his second album, Kings & Queens, released in September. It did his debut two slots better, peaking at number two in the British charts. Unfortunately, he had to cancel a planned worldwide tour due to laryngitis. He released his third EP, The Mans Machine, during the latter part of 2009 and toured intermittently throughout 2010. In 2012, he appeared on Tim Timebombs single "Wrongful Suspicion." The Carry on the Grudge album followed in 2014, and featured the Top 40 U.K. single "Zombie." An EP, Magnolia Melancholia, followed one year later. Jamie T. returned in 2016 with his fourth long-player, Trick. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 10 Title: Betty & the Selfish Sons Released: 2006-03-06 Tracks: 4 Duration: 13:46 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Salvador (03:29) 2 Livin With Betty (03:55) 3 So Lonely Was the Ballad (03:52) 4 Back in the Game (02:28) |
 | Album: 2 of 10 Title: Panic Prevention Released: 2007-01-29 Tracks: 12 Duration: 49:35 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Wikipedia Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Brand New Bass Guitar (02:08) 2 Salvador (03:33) 3 Calm Down Dearest (04:40) 4 So Lonely Was the Ballad (03:50) 5 Back in the Game (02:29) 6 Operation (05:48) 7 Sheila (04:19) 8 Pacemaker (03:26) 9 Dry Off Your Cheeks (05:03) 10 Ike & Tina (03:38) 11 If You Got the Money (04:03) 12 Alicia Quays (06:32) |
| Panic Prevention : Allmusic album Review : Hes either a one-man Arctic Monkeys or an indie Mike Skinner, in training to take over the mantle of the Streets. If his yelping, strangled vocals arent enough of a hindrance to wider fame, then his yobbish subject matter and constant stream of slang should make it a sure bet hell never risk having a hit outside Europe (or the United Kingdom, for that matter). And hes got a thing for his bass. Hes Jamie T., and if its impossible to imagine him getting a release on Virgin before Arctic Monkeys became a sensation, then it still must be admitted that he adds up to a little more than the sum of his parts. He can move, as he does on "Calm Down Dearest," from nakedly delivering a stumbling-drunk line like "Where we going, what we doin this night/I feel drunk already maybe drink got spiked" into crooning romantic reassurances over a sublime dance track. One of the singles, "Sheila," is a well-drawn portrait of an abused woman on the edge of a breakdown (though his syllable-spraying delivery isnt what youd call economical). The production, from Jamie himself as well as friends and partners (including main man Ben Coupland), doesnt use much more than his beloved bass guitar, but makes great use of the spare keyboard and sampler. Still, Panic Prevention isnt much better than its best three or four songs, and its due to Jamie T.s stubborn insistence on being understood only by himself, or perhaps a precious few in his coterie. For instance (and this is only one of many), its hard to dissect the advice he gives on "Back in the Game": "Take your brother down to the sea, have a twos on a cigarette/Young sons mozy it happily, learn facts on the soviets." | ||
 | Album: 3 of 10 Title: Sticks n Stones Released: 2009-06-28 Tracks: 4 Duration: 14:45 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Sticks n Stones (04:00) 2 St Christopher (03:57) 3 On the Green (03:36) 4 The Dance of the Young Professionals (03:12) |
 | Album: 4 of 10 Title: Chaka Demus Released: 2009-08-31 Tracks: 4 Duration: 15:29 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Chaka Demus (single version) (03:33) 2 Forget Me Not (The Love I Knew Before I Grew) (04:35) 3 Planning Spontaneity (03:54) 4 When They Are Gone (for Tim) (03:27) |
 | Album: 5 of 10 Title: Kings & Queens Released: 2009-09-04 Tracks: 11 Duration: 42:47 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 368 (04:43) 2 Hocus Pocus (03:30) 3 Sticks ’n’ Stones (04:00) 4 The Mans Machine (04:50) 5 Emilys Heart (04:07) 6 Chaka Demus (03:34) 7 Spiders Web (04:44) 8 Castro Dies (02:59) 9 Earth, Wind & Fire (03:45) 10 British Intelligence (03:18) 11 Jilly Armeen (03:13) |
| Kings & Queens : Allmusic album Review : After just one album, it may have been difficult to peg Jamie T. as either a Streets imitator or an original on his own. His debut, Panic Prevention, included flashes of brilliance, but the yowling delivery and willfully obtuse lyrics couldve easily been a pose. Album number two comes with some high expectations -- Panic Prevention was Mercury-nominated, after all -- and it mostly confirms that Jamie Treays has a music career in front of him if he wants it. Fortunately, he hasnt matured out of his core strengths: his vitality, his expressiveness, and his knack for twisting the vagaries of everyday life for urban youth into material for songs. (If any of these qualities make listeners think of heartily English roustabouts like Joe Strummer or Billy Bragg, theyre well on their way.) "The Mans Machine" marvels at our ability to make lives around the sterile elements of city life ("Stone, glass, concrete and gravel/All we got to keep us together"), while a pair of acoustic ballads ("Emilys Heart" and "Jilly Armeen") are the most affecting songs of his young career. | ||
 | Album: 6 of 10 Title: The Mans Machine EP Released: 2009-11-23 Tracks: 4 Duration: 14:16 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 The Mans Machine (single edit) (03:39) 2 Jenny Can Rely On Me (03:33) 3 Man Not A Monster (02:58) 4 Believing In Things That Cant Be Done (04:06) |
 | Album: 7 of 10 Title: Carry On the Grudge Released: 2014-09-24 Tracks: 12 Duration: 45:55 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Limits Lie (04:11) 2 Don’t You Find (04:15) 3 Turn On the Light (04:26) 4 Zombie (04:06) 5 The Prophet (04:14) 6 Mary Lee (03:24) 7 Trouble (02:56) 8 Rabbit Hole (03:39) 9 Peter (03:36) 10 Love Is Only a Heartbeat Away (02:33) 11 Murder of Crows (04:01) 12 They Told Me It Rained (04:28) |
| Carry On the Grudge : Allmusic album Review : Snarling and rapping his smart lyrics since 2007, the genre-spanning Jamie T. pops his heads up once in a while, grabs some NME awards, and lands on various Best Albums of the Year lists, and then disappears into the ether, perhaps unhappy that hes been tagged as pop musics future. Carry on the Grudge is a brilliant title for Comet Jamie T.s 2014 return because five years off and hes still snarling at the injustice in the world, but as opener "Limits Lie" displays, hes able to take this universal hurt on at a bluesmans pace, making the high-volume weeping and wailing during the songs chorus quite effective. An ode to the Clash, the great "Zombie" sounds like Damon Albarn did the singing, the Black Keys did the playing, and Shaun Ryder wrote the lyrics, while "Rabbit Hole" is the rap-rock revolution that U2 toyed with, now perfected. All these cool influences and Jamie is still an identifiable artist as the poignancy and the wordplay here is entirely T., and with "Love Is Only a Heartbeat Away," hes reached a new plateau, offering "you better save it for your darkest of days" over an acoustic guitar as Warren Zevon smiles from above. Shame hes keeping a twice-a-decade pace, but this album should stick to the bones for twice that long, likely longer. | ||
 | Album: 8 of 10 Title: Magnolia Melancholia Released: 2015-04-06 Tracks: 6 Duration: 21:28 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Don’t You Find (04:15) 2 Marilyn Monroe (03:16) 3 Mama Dont Smoke (01:45) 4 Magnolia Melancholia (04:20) 5 Riverbed (03:25) 6 Bastards of Young (04:26) |
 | Album: 9 of 10 Title: Trick Released: 2016-09-02 Tracks: 12 Duration: 48:46 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Tinfoil Boy (04:13) 2 Drone Strike (03:26) 3 Power Over Men (03:38) 4 Tescoland (04:00) 5 Police Tapes (04:20) 6 Dragon Bones (04:09) 7 Joan of Arc (03:36) 8 Solomon Eagle (03:49) 9 Robin Hood (03:23) 10 Sign of the Times (04:11) 11 Crossfire Love (04:29) 12 Self Esteem (05:26) |
| Trick : Allmusic album Review : Jamie T.s fourth long-player is a return to the infectious and rebellious spirit of his first two records. Trick is also his best work to date. Drawing upon a wide swath of influences -- half the fun of the album is catching all the sonic allusions -- he twists each one to fit into his genre-blurring vision, resulting in an exciting and insanely catchy listen. Nods to fellow countrymen like the Clash, Arctic Monkeys, Blur, and Kasabian provide some of the backdrop to Trick, which sounds more like a career retrospective from a sonic chameleon than an artist still wading through life at the age of 30. Without taking too much from Jamie T., much of his delivery -- both in voice and lyrical cleverness -- is indebted to Alex Turner. Standout single "Power Over Men" grooves with effortless cool like the Last Shadow Puppets, while Arctic Monkeys energy drips from most of the upbeat numbers (on "Joan of Arc"). The specter of Joe Strummer is also present, especially on "Tescoland" (the spiritual sibling to "Lost in the Supermarket" if it was distilled through the Brit-pop of Blur and Kaiser Chiefs), and on the outlaw ode "Robin Hood," which is home to the best guitar solo on Trick. Elsewhere, "Tinfoil Boy" is an apocalyptic blast that imagines Tom Morello joining Muse, while the spooky "Drone Strike" is a grime-packed Demon Days bender. Similarly doom-laden intensity fills the spaces in between, as Jamie T. tackles police brutality on the dubby Kasabian-meets-Sleaford-Mods "Police Tapes"; the fire-and-brimstone inner city lament "Solomon Eagle" (named after the 17th century "prophet" and album cover boy), and the orchestral distortion of the wounded closer "Self Esteem." Though the album may sound like a wild ride (indeed, "Dragon Bones" might be the bounciest singalong about blowing ones brains out ever written), Jamie T. tackles self-doubt, suicide, regret, aging, social despair, addiction, and the mundanity of everyday life with the expert eye of both observer and sufferer. This substance firmly establishes his own voice, which -- on a work that pulls so many inspirations into his own orbit -- is an important reminder of Jamie T.s unique perspective and mad scientist approach to his craft. From start to finish, Trick is arresting, with enough sonic surprises to excite and perplex listeners freed from the restrictions of genre boundaries. | ||
 | Album: 10 of 10 Title: B Sides (06-17) Released: 2018-08-17 Tracks: 10 Duration: 34:43 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Fox News (02:54) 2 Livin With Betty (03:55) 3 Meet Me on the Corner (03:49) 4 Oh My Girl (03:34) 5 Feel Me (03:27) 6 Fire Fire (02:25) 7 40/40 ICU (03:45) 8 Sycophant (02:54) 9 The Likeness of Being (04:17) 10 Thomas Dunn (03:38) |