Cocknbullkid – Hold On To Your Misery

Now here’s a curious thing. Londoner Anita Blay has been making waves for a couple of years now, regularly talked up as one to watch in hushed tones by those lucky enough to have caught one of her few live shows, but despite signing with Moshi Moshi / Island in 2009, we’ve seen precious little material save a handful of singles. In the meantime, she’s dropped the “the” from her moniker, posted some interesting videos on MySpace, and generally given the impression of being hard at work on an album.

She’s always maintained that, despite being a fan, she’s never harboured any aspiration to operate within grime, R&B, or anything really considered “urban”. “I just want to make pop music” she told the Guardian, and a listen to ‘Hold On To Your Misery’ confirms that’s exactly what she has done. A bright and breezy number, it’s exactly the kind of pleasant and inoffensive material the Radio One playlists cry out for - Scott Mills will love it. The gospel choir in the chorus lends a spiritual, uplifting quality, but its sunny disposition is soon cast aside when you realise what they are singing.

The weight of major label backing means she’s had her pick of collaborators and producers, such as Metronomy’s Joe Mount, and it shows. ‘Misery’ is polished to within an inch of its life, and embellished with the likes of string flourishes and the aforementioned choir, but lyrically it’s all Blay, and it’s pretty bleak. Bemoaning the modern world’s never-ending pursuit of happiness, this is a celebration of the darker emotions – she even manages to rhyme “insecurities” with “neuroses” – and embracing your failings. Having had a few tough teenage years herself, she’s well qualified to claim “You’re most alive when you’re nearest death” and “A little cynicism will do you good”. Overall, it’s incredibly well written and a brave choice of subject matter, especially for someone with their eye firmly on the charts. It’s just a shame the same spark of originality hasn’t been applied to the music, for then we’d having something that was truly worth the wait.