Legacies are tricky things. When you\u2019re following in the footsteps of not one but two musical legends, where do you even begin? Ben Taylor, son of \u201970s singer-songwriter icons James Taylor and Carly Simon, resisted the siren call of the music business for a number of years before succumbing, Jakob Dylan-like, in his mid-20s. Since then he\u2019s built a solid reputation as\u2014no shocker here\u2014an insightful singer-songwriter with an appealing, accessible voice and a sharp yet charming wit.<\/p>\n
Where he\u2019s succeeded in carving out his own unique creative path is in the variety of textures and styles he\u2019s incorporated into his music beyond its familiar core of easy-going, pop-inflected contemporary folk. Listening<\/i> features elements of soul and reggae and country-folk and hip-hop sprinkled throughout, lending the album a kind of heady musicality. Taylor\u2019s comfortable-in-his-own-skin charisma allows him to stretch his gifts out in genuinely interesting and appealing ways.<\/p>\n
The title cut starts things off with a deceptively gentle acoustic vibe that serves to underscore the power of Taylor\u2019s lyric. It\u2019s a nice bit about slowing the world down to really communicate, that\u2019s helped along by his ability to effortlessly pull off rhymes like \u201cgracefully\u2026 race with me.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh Brother\u201d embraces and celebrates family connections, a Hammond-accented bounty of brotherly advice for his younger siblings that also calls on Pops, first echoing a key line from \u201cYou\u2019ve Got A Friend\u201d and then name-checking JT while engaging in spot-on mimickry of his father\u2019s playful vocal gymnastics. Toward the end, Taylor\u2019s sibling advice takes the form of a virtual topic sentence not just for this album but for his entire musical career: \u201cAll you\u2019ve got to do is be who you are.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Here, Taylor firmly establishes himself as a sort of sly-grinning musical alchemist, mixing and matching the easy-going reggae-soul of \u201cOh Brother\u201d with the arch David Gray-ish electro-pop of \u201cNot Alone\u201d and the homespun country-folk ambience of \u201cGiulia,\u201d the latter arriving complete with whistled bridge. The wise, confident playfulness that\u2019s clearly part of Taylor\u2019s creative inheritance permeates songs like the terrific \u201cWorlds Are Made Of Paper,\u201d with its effortless lyricism and insistent melody line. (You have to love how he turns “do” into a five-syllable word in the latter, as well.)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s more seamless genre-mixing to come as Taylor adds blues-funk elements to \u201cVespa\u2019s Song\u201d and \u201cAmerica,\u201d features a smooth, clean guest rap by friend John Fort\u00e9 on top of the hooky little soul-pop groove of \u201cDirty,\u201d and delivers a sterling dream-pop number with \u201cBurning Bridges.\u201d\u00a0 The latter\u2019s key lines\u2014\u201cWisdom cures so many things\u201d and \u201cI don\u2019t want to change the world \/ I just want to stop pretending\u201d\u2014are characteristic, casually-tossed off little nuggets of insight. Closing up strong, Taylor lifts the flirtacious \u201cYou Could Be Mine\u201d up on the shoulders of a reggae shuffle and finishes with a sleepy-eyed, acoustic, end-of-the-evening entreaty for his listeners to join him again \u201cNext Time Around.\u201d<\/p>\n
This one will. Listening<\/i> is an album full of gentle wisdom and sharper insights, varied textures and consistent quality. What more can an artist ask than this: as soon as this album finished, I wanted to hear it again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":31038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8897],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-42722","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ben-taylor","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42722"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}