Track Review: Sam Sparro – The Shallow End

Sam Sparro’s latest foray into the charts manages to be deeply evocative of the 1970s disco movement with a song and imagery which would not be out of place in a news reel from the decade. However, tragically, the complete work ends up as a lazy and frankly dull piece which fails to live up to the artists previous work.

Musically the track manages to be fun and makes the most of a positive disco beat evocative of that era of music. However, the song fails to lead up to anything or go anywhere which gives the whole composition a feeling that it is filler for an album rather than a potential chart topper in its own right. The song also failed to be memorable and had no sense of personal identity which means it pales in comparison to previous songs which managed to carry a message to its listeners.

The video is effectively a composition of home movies which were married up with the lyrics of the song. The stunning flaw however is that they have not been put together very well, making the combination feel just as lazy and derivative as the song itself. The video has been treated to give it an ‘authentic’ 70s look which does help to hammer in the disco elements of the track, but the narrative has no real cohesion so the message, if any existed, is lost completely.

There are some minor saving graces and that goes down to the way that the track is presented. The disco elements, combined with the treatment of the video managed to communicate the feel of the 70’s really well. Sparro himself was also rather daring in his choice to put up his own home videos which was a much needed personal touch. However, while trying to capture the musical styles of the time Sparro seemed to have missed the real spirit of the decade, making this feel more like a half hearted imitation rather than an homage or tribute.

The Shallow End is worth a listen especially if you have an interest in that musical era, and will probably be popular with Sparro’s own fan base. But its imperfect execution will likely have new listeners loosing interest long before the end of the song.