GAVIN KNOWLES

Reviewed: "Beautiful Girl" MP3
Website: www.gavinknowlesmusic.com

I'm not really sure where to start with this one. The song is a well (overly?) produced 3 minute pop (emphasise the pop) track about, you guessed it, "A Beautiful Girl".

The main basis of the song is a nice spanish 'summertime on the beach' type guitar riff, which really is the best part of the song, and its for this reason I'm imagining that the track is available to download as an instrumental track (as well as full track and an acoustic track).

I gather Gavin Knowles' main drive behind songwriting is the guitar playing, and it shows. The main riffs, widdly filler bits and the little solo towards the end are all good examples of a great guitar player and songwriter.

In most cases the lyrics and vocals would be more than good enough, but I get the impression that this song is intended to be a No. 1 single, in which case they fall way short of the mark. A chorus about girls 'rocking your world' and shooting 'arrows through your heart' really isn't going to do anything on Radio 1 nowadays, which is why even the most established commercial acts are finding the most obscure (and graphic) topics of conversation to sing about. That's not to take away from them too much, and the vocals in particular are really well sung.

Its this combination of music and lyrics that make it really difficult to slot the track into a genre. The music on its own could make a catchy Maroon 5 style indie-pop number, but with the lyrics on top I could quite easily imagine Peter Andre or some other second rate singer prancing around on a beach singing along to it.

In conclusion? A very good song, but if it is intended as a chart topper then it has a long way to go yet.

The Best Bit: Spanish guitar.
The Worst Bit: Overly ambitious.

Reviewed by SD