Jamie T — Kings & Queens

Kings & Queens

Virgin/EMI

Ian Gormely (CHARTattack)

10/15/2009 10:30am

Brits have always been better and more willing to mix their musical genres than us North Americans. For some reason, adherence to hard-lined scene principles never seems to get in the way of a great pop song. Case in point: London, England's Jamie T.

The 23-year-old is a singer/songwriter in the most literal sense. Rather than playing the sad-bastard-with-acoustic-guitar role, T throws every modern genre in to a blender and pours out pop culture alchemy, mixing pop, hip-hop, Brit-pop, punk and indie bedroom recording sounds along with cheeky British wit to create fun, fluid tracks like "Sticks 'N' Stones." And yes, his lyrics borrow heavily from the Mike Skinner school of everyday observation, but they never feel rote.

Jamie T is already a star back in the U.K., but this kind of musical mixology usually falls flat on North American ears more comfortable with compartmentalization. Whether T is the artist to break this trend remains to be seen, but that doesn't mean the more musically savvy shouldn't pick up Kings & Queens.

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