No truth is more self-evident than that there are those whose best emerges only when they are paired with others: Lennon and McCartney, Morecambe and Wise, Clough and Taylor. And it’s perhaps even harder for a behind-the-scenes collaborator to step out in their own right.
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Jack Antonoff, for example, is one of the creative powerhouses of modern pop: he co-writes and produces songs for Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and Lorde, who plainly regard him as intrinsic to their success. His work probably reaches more ears than any other songwriter on Earth. But when he writes and produces those songs for himself? The magic vanishes. The band he fronts, Bleachers, are popular, but no more popular than any other indie rock band that listens to Springsteen.
Ditto Finneas O’Connell, who was another not-getting-anywhere-fast musician until he got his younger sister to record a song he had written. His younger sister is Billie Eilish, and ever since he has been her creative partner as she has risen to become one of the world’s biggest stars. Listening to his set at the Fillmore – where a pint of beer is more than $19; never again shall I complain about O2 prices – it was apparent that he could turn his hand to any style with ease.
There was light, twilit pop-funk, the kind of thing that should by law be produced only by the French (‘What’s It Gonna Take to Break Your Heart’), chugging new wave (‘Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa’), and a good bit of emotive, sarcastic balladry in the style of Father John Misty, leaning heavily on the early 1970s but with contemporary alienation layered on top.
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