Photo Credit: Max Dodson
If Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Autotune)" was the first shot fired at the artificial state of music, then autotune better brace itself as the line of attackers only seems to be growing. Daniel Merriweather, a Mark Ronson protege and pop/soul singer who launched on to the scene with "Stop Me," is one of the louder voices in the chorus against what he sees as the automation and robotization of singers.
"At the moment on pop radio we just get so many songs, that you kind of wonder, Can I actually hear a person in there? Was there any artistic element to the song at all?" said Daniel Merriweather, in an interview with Bark + Bite. "Where do you draw the line where you don't even need the artist or the producer and it ends up being like Orwell's "1984," where there's this song generator, and it's a box and you press a button and then for the next six months the whole population sings this song that this machine made."
Suffice it to say, a collaboration with T-Pain doesn't appear to be on the horizon. And with the success of more 'organic' artists like Sade and Maxwell this past year, the pendulum just might be swinging toward more stripped-down voices, instrumental sounds and richer lyrics. Which is quite alright with Merriweather, who considers himself a fan.
"I've been a fan of Sade since I was a kid and the same with Maxwell. It's just great to see real music get the respect it deserves again. Real artists, with real opinions and emotions, putting themselves on the line I think is really important," said Merriweather.
Opinions, however, can be giant targets on an artist's back in a world where the wrong sound bite can make you public enemy number 1. Just think back to the Dixie Chicks and their comment about "being ashamed" that George W. Bush was from Texas, which resulted in a vitriolic backlash from Country radio and conservatives across the country. It is exactly this world of blue state, red state politics that makes Merriweather keep his politics somewhat guarded.
"I'm incredibly politically-minded and I've got a million opinions that I could talk to someone in private about for hours on end," said Merriweather. "I can't describe my political viewpoints in a sound bite. I think the best way that an artist can express their political views is through analogy and through metaphor. If I can keep writing love songs, even if it's a slight portion of my worldview, showing this is the way I felt when this person did me wrong."
Photo Credit: Max Dodson
His worldview is the centerpiece on the eye-to-the-sky track "Change" from his debut album "Love+War." The song, a collaboration with Washington DC rapper Wale, was inspired by Merriweather marveling at a NY landlord who watered his sidewalk daily while in his native Australia, people suffered through droughts. The lyrics take on the waste, greed and arrogance of globalization, but aim to uplift the conscience of the listener at the same time. Daniel raved about his Allido Records labelmate Wale's verse, calling the rapper's quick wit genius.
"We were in Electric Lady studios in New York and I called up Wale and I was like, 'I want you to get on this song.' He came in, he listened to it and it took him about 10 or 15 minutes. In the back of my head while he was doing it, I said 'Maybe you should take it away and think about it. This is a song where I want to say a lot," said Merriweather. "In 10 minutes he recited his verse he'd just written and it was literally the most insightful piece of 16 bars of amazing ideas. I couldn't believe he did it in 10 minutes."
But the buoyant collaboration with Wale is one of few highs on the rollercoaster of aches and pains that make up Merriweather's debut. The album is a more sober, wide-eyed take on heartache than the other Mark Ronson-produced breakthrough album, Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black." Daniel's story goes through the full cycle of love, starting with limmerance on "Impossible," swinging to break-up on his duet with Grammy winner Adele on "Water and a Flame," landing in the pool of self-pity on "Getting Out" and seething with resentment on "Not Giving Up." The love/war analogy here places the protagonist in painful situations, but unlike Winehouse, who has clearly become a casualty in the war, Merriweather seems to emerge in the end with his integrity intact, lessons learned and a sense of hope about the future.
The lead single for the project in the US is "Red," a sweeping ballad about measuring up to someone's impossible expectations, but Daniel hopes to release "Impossible" and his duet with Adele at some point as well. The haunting, lonely ode to New York City, "For Your Money" is also a strong contender for a single. Especially if it's linked with some premium cable show a la "Entourage."
With a keen sense of direction and his fealty to his emotions, Daniel Merriweather is confident his heart-on-his-sleeve approach to life will propel him forward in his career.
"I'll bend on a lot of things, but one thing I won't bend on is artistic integrity. To make songs from that pure point of 'I wanna write this song because it makes me feel this way and I want other people to identify with that,' I think that's something that I always want to keep as a constant when I'm making my music," said Merriweather.
Watch this live performance of Daniel Merriweather performing his single "Red" on the Late Show with David Letterman.
