Griff’s trajectory from adolescence to young adulthood via the prism of pop is an object lesson in how young would-be stars are put through the entertainment ringer. The singer born Sarah Griffiths won the 2021 Brit rising star award, a good indicator of who the major labels are putting their bets on for that year. She duly featured on the covers of various style magazines, released some straightforward pop songs about the usual, broken-hearted subjects, has a signature look (a ponytail long enough to do Rapunzel proud) and got the endorsement from Taylor Swift, who asked her to support her second show at Wembley this year.
There has, however, been one key thing missing, which every pop star needs: a hit. Now Griff’s first album proper is here to do something about that. As charmingly good-natured and wholesome as it is, however, you do feel a trick has been missed in not pushing the boat out further.
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Everything about Griff suggests a more creative artist waiting to get out than the one on show here. Having released her debut EP, The Mirror Talk, four weeks after taking her A-levels, she made an impact with a superb piano-based weepie called Good Stuff, which was crying out to be used in the sad parts of BBC dramas. On top of this she grew up in a church-going, Vietnamese-Jamaican family in the little Hertfordshire village of Kings Langley, which surely gives her a unique perspective; she was still at school when she taught herself the rudiments of record production. However, little of that comes through on an album made up of solid, straightforward pop, aiming for mass appeal so squarely that any real character has been lost in the process.
Vertigo is the big single, and it concerns someone who is scared of falling in love with Griff. It also does the modern pop trick that Ed Sheeran has specialised in — sticking to a narrow vocal range and a handful of notes to fix a simple melody in the listener’s brain.
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From there Miss Me Too does a similar thing, with Griff singing the same pattern in a high, breathy register; more words about the sadness of love not working out, but this time against a whooshing synthetic beat made for spilling your negroni on the holiday dancefloor to. Buried among such standard-issue stuff are some interesting touches. Hole in My Pocket may use yet another metaphor for lost love — this time a ripped pocket from which money, keys and lovers fall out — but the Eighties synthesiser backing and slow build toward emotional impact via a glorious chorus show real ambition. And there is a touch of Christian doubt on Everlasting, even if it does end up being another song about the agonies of romance. Few chances have been taken here, then, but Griff is a talent who may well come up with something more engaging in the years to come.
★★★☆☆
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