{"id":41290,"date":"2018-10-14T14:07:30","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T13:07:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/?p=41290"},"modified":"2018-10-14T14:07:30","modified_gmt":"2018-10-14T13:07:30","slug":"tom-odell-is-the-piano-man-in-more-ways-than-one-with-new-concept-album-jubilee-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/essentiallypop.com\/epop\/2018\/10\/tom-odell-is-the-piano-man-in-more-ways-than-one-with-new-concept-album-jubilee-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Odell Is The Piano Man In More Ways Than One With New Concept Album ‘Jubilee Road’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written while he was living in a house in East London, and encorporating real life stories from the time – with the street name changed of course, to protect the privacy of his former neighbours – Tom Odell’s ‘Jubilee Road’ is ten tracks of intense honesty and personal insight.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Odell is still only 27 years old, and yet his voice sounds much older than that. It certainly sounds older than he looks, and clearly Odell has been doing something right. The incongruous nature of his tones doesn’t quite reach the same depths as George Ezra, but there’s nonetheless an old soul quality about his voice.<\/p>\n

Odell has taken full control of this album, not simply writing, singing and playing piano, but also producing all ten tracks on the album.<\/p>\n

In speaking of the album, Tom said,<\/p>\n

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“The lyrics are inspired by the lives of the friends I made whilst living there. I recorded most of the songs in the living room of the house, and if I listen back closely I can still hear the sound of the old man’s television shows coming through the walls from next door, the kids from the house opposite playing football in the street below, and the sound of my girlfriend’s footsteps on the wooden floorboards above. I don’t live there anymore, my life has changed somewhat, but I will always remember the time fondly and I hope you enjoy listening to the album as much as I did making it.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Tom Odell’s first album, ‘Long Way Down’, which debuted at the number 1 spot in the UK, featured his breakthrough single, ‘Another Love’, which was met with critical acclaim. He won the Brits Critics’ Choice Award in 2013 at the tender age of 22, and followed it up with the Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter Of The Year in 2014. ‘Real Love’ followed ‘Another Love’ into the UK Top 10, with the latter, which was a cover of a Beatles song, used for the UK John Lewis Christmas TV campaign in 2014. Odell has seen a massive 1.8 million album sales, and 10 million single sales worldwide.<\/p>\n

Odell reminds us of Billy Joel in many ways; not just his piano playing and his emphatic singing style, but also his storytelling lyrics. ‘Jubilee Road’ in a sense could be Odell’s ‘The Stranger’ – just as Joel sets the scene with ‘Anthony’s Song’, so does Tom with the title track, establishing the album as a concept, and drawing us into his relationships, both personal and neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

The choral nature of second track, ‘If You Wanna Love Somebody’ takes us to church, with Odell’s voice rising to its full strength, while ‘Son Of An Only Child’ is moving and poignant, with him recently explaining to Build London that it’s about “generational friction”:<\/p>\n

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