Findlay Brown

Love Will Find You

(This Is Music)

Record Review by Amber Henson

I’ve learned to never trust the British when it comes to music (or when they’re wearing red coats).  Any country that can make Crazy Frog’s “Axel F” (you remember it, though you wish you didn’t) their number one single should not be looked upon for the golden standard of music.  That said, they do get it right.  Sometimes.

Findlay Brown is from the UK and he gets it right.  Sometimes.  He wants to be Elvis, a modern Elvis, and sometimes it works for him.  But just as much as it does, it doesn’t.  There are a few songs on Love Will Find You, including the title track that sound like instant classics.  His voice is sure, the beat is steady, and the lyrics are happy-go-lucky.  Great as a single, tough to get through as a whole album.

The album starts and ends with great songs.  The aforementioned “Love Will Find You” is sweet, and the last two tracks “I Still Want You” and “I Had a Dream” are fun and inspiring, respectively.  “I Still Want You” is a march, interestingly enough.  But I like John Phillips Sousa and I like risks, so I’ll allow it.  “I Had a Dream” is like what plays at the end of a cheesy mid-nineties movie.  There’s a bizarre combination of be-bop and “feelings” music, with a lot of violins and piano.

But the rest of the album is full of clichés, like the song “Nobody Cared” which is basically just alternative lyrics to the “Nobody likes me everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms” song.  Then there’s “Teardrops Lost in the Rain”, where Brown really brings out his Elvis impersonation, probably hoping to inspire us to a few teardrops of our own.

It’s a good album, since Brown has a good voice.  His MySpace page also shows he has good looks.  But he’s missing that X-Factor and the ability to write an album full of strong songs.  Maybe on his next album he’ll bring in a writer, and plaster his face on a few bus benches.  That’s how to get America to love you!