There’s been such a fuss about Declan McKenna, it’s tempting to wonder if folks were subconsciously confusing his name with the one on Elvis Costello’s birth certificate, Declan MacManus. In early 2015, when McKenna was barely 16, he was already being courted by numerous music-biz types. Later that year, brandishing a loop pedal and a red bandana, the floppy-haired bard won Glastonbury Festival’s Emerging Talent Competition. That contest’s previous winners aren’t household names, but McKenna was soon hailed as the voice of his generation.
McKenna had been uploading jazz-inflected, appealingly ramshackle guitar-pop for a couple of years, name-checking influences from Jeff Buckley to Bach. The song that vaulted him into the arms of the major labels was “Brazil,” which is most interesting for being written, when McKenna was 15, as a condemnation of FIFA then-president Sepp Blatter. The lyrics themselves weren’t so obvious, but they were evocative. McKenna’s pinched vocals, however, sounded like just about every UK indie bloke hype that has come over post-Libertines. Musically, with a twinkling riff over a shambolic four-chord progression, it was also pretty commonplace. Super catchy, though. Viewers of his 2016 solo performance on “Conan” wondered, wrongly but not unreasonably, if the melody was nicked from a song that they used to know.
“Brazil” is one of the best songs on McKenna’s major-label debut album, What Do You Think About the Car?, and also illustrates its shortcomings. Now 18 years old, McKenna really does sound like a voice of a generation (as Lena Dunham once put it). He’s an eloquent champion of progressive social causes who wore a “Give 17 Year Olds the Vote” T-shirt on “Jools Holland,” spars with TV villain Piers Morgan, and speaks out against sexism aimed at his female band members. He grapples with social issues in his lyrics, too. But those lyrics are often forgettably muddled. All this is generally backed by bland Bowie homages that further blur the lines between McKenna and any number of would-be British indie-vaders, from Jake Bugg, Tom Vek, and Jamie T to the Maccabees, the Kooks, and the Vaccines. There’s promise here, but it’s confused.
His message loses strength, in part, because he doesn’t fully commit to it. McKenna has nonchalantly skewered the generational-voice stuff as mere “sensationalism.” And yet the video for “The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home,” written after the Bataclan attacks, begins with the voices of young people, talking about their g-g-generation—which they feel is “lost,” but also deeply concerned about racism, homophobia, sexism, and bullying. The song itself, a standout here, if a bit overblown in its Britpop grandeur and vague in its second-person indignation, could benefit from similar clarity.
James Ford, who produced all but two of the tracks, has plenty of experience with a McKenna-like vocal style in his great work across several Arctic Monkeys albums. But an uneasy conflict between ideological progressivism and sonic orthodoxy feels like it’s embedded in the songs. Opener “Humongous” builds up until it’s, well, humongous, but quirky riff aside, it’s not much more fun than when those Gen Xers in Oasis got similarly bloated. The subject matter is all critically important— “Paracetamol” was inspired by the suicide of transgender teen Leelah Alcorn, “Bethlehem” grapples with religious hypocrisy, and “Isombard” depicts a FOX News-like TV host—but that isn’t necessarily evident without research. One of the standard lines on McKenna seems to be: He doesn’t just sing memorable songs, he’s also intelligent. I completely agree he’s intelligent. I’d like to remember more of his songs.
Unfortunately, but tellingly, the easiest-to-recall moments aren’t musical. They’re spoken-word snippets, where McKenna seems to be sending up his voice-of-the-youth rep by taking it very literally. What Do You Think About the Car? opens with the voices of children—McKenna’s sister asking the title phrase in audio from an old home movie, the four-year-old proto-troubadour chirping back cutely, “I think it’s really good and now I’m going to sing my new album now.” A track later, “Brazil” ends with a young boy’s voice from a popular meme. “The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home” has a children’s choir and closes with one of its members laughing about not wanting to come home.
There are aspects of McKenna’s rise that can look weirdly puffed-up. His YouTube channel claimed the “Brazil” lyrics got him investigated by the FBI—a joke, he said when asked. Rumors spread that he’d been chased by an unbelievable 40 record labels—a misconstrued exaggeration, he has said, though the stat persists. Surprisingly, Columbia didn’t pack fidget spinners with the vinyl.
But that McKenna is far worthier of your time than Jake Bugg isn’t in doubt. McKenna happily gushes about musical free thinkers like St. Vincent and Sufjan Stevens, and the most hopeful sign he might join their ranks is the finale, “Listen to Your Friends.” Co-written and produced by Rostam, it’s part country-pop lope, part artful cello shading. Calling for youth solidarity against atavistic forces of shallow ignorance, it’s trenchant, convincing, and stunning. McKenna concludes here, “Please trust in me.” Despite a scattershot and often lackluster first outing, he has at least earned that trust.
