Nizlopi – ‘JCB Song’

15 December 2005

I can’t quite recall the circumstances in which the unknown Nizlopi’s JCB song rode a swell of Internet goodwill to top the UK and then the Irish charts. It being at Christmas, I suspect there was something to do with Britain’s strange new tradition of watching The X Factor in droves all winter then suddenly being aghast that buying the winner’s single actually saw it take the festive number one spot: a typically English inane public debate, this time Simon Cowell vs Sincerity. This will reach its apogee in the 2009 Rage Against The Machine of buying a major label single with a sweary chorus to defeat the evils of Cowellism, despite this itself being the Cowellism of performative authenticity and pantomime villainy. We’ll see the 2005 X Factor winner at the top of the Irish charts in early 2006. But before that, the JCB song.

I’m mindful that Nizlopi’s chart-topping status was in many ways out of their control: an Internet whim that escalated quickly, and hardly a calculated tilt at hit status. Also, I get the back story of singer-writer Luke Concannon riffing on the bullying and dyslexia difficulties of his schooldays to write something of personal emotional resonance. This song clearly meant something to a lot of people. However, as a chart-topping record it’s twee, maudlin, dreary and clunky. Concannon’s flat delivery and child’s-eye worldview are a novelty that quickly wears thin. Also, that Irish-influenced English folk-pop sound carries the spores of future Ed Sheeran (who was briefly a Nizlopi roadie) and Mumford & Sons. So anyway, I don’t like the JCB song. I’ll concede, though, that it was a modest track minding its own business but which somehow got elevated way above its level of competence.