Josh Doyle is unique; watch and listen to his latest material, and you’ll see an artist with an enormous passion for the songs he creates and performs; a guitar style which is superb in it’s intricacy; a history including four top 40 singles in the UK charts in the early 2000’s and supporting Bon Jovi at Wembley Stadium; and a body of work which has Billboard Magazine touting Josh as “…the next big thing on an international level”.
“I Figured the World Out”, Track 6 on Josh’s 2012 self-titled album release, which you can find here, is in its entirety a study in how a really talented singer/songwriter and guitarist can excel. With a guitar part which defies the hand-span of most, and a lyric which is both thoughtful and emotional, it’s a number which will show you exactly why he won Guitar Center’s 2012 Singer Songwriter Competition.
You can view the video below as you read, if you want to follow the song along.
Leaping into a beautiful acoustic guitar lick from the beginning, it’s a rhythmic and melodic start to a really catchy number. There’s no doubt from the very start of the vocal that it’s the Josh Doyle we all know and love – he has a voice that’s impossible to forget from when I first heard him in the early 2000’s;
“Got the fence surrounded, snipers on the roof,
Copters buzzing frantic, sights on me and you”
There’s just enough gravel in that voice to cement the knowledge that he’s passionate on the subject. Then into that glorious first chorus; kept nice and low to allow for build later in the song, it’s catchy as hell;
“Can’t you see you’re all I’ve got?
All that I can’t live without,
While you were sleeping,
I figured the world out, I figured the world out”
The lyric needs thinking about – the second verse giving us a beautiful pass into the second chorus, which is Josh at his all out best. Demonstrating the best of his range, he let’s the second chorus fly with an angst and passion which will drag you right into the heart of the song.
The bridge is once again both lyrically and musically intelligent, stepping the song up another level, and this next is the one lyric that has really stuck in my mind since I first heard the song;
“And all my dreams have failed me like election night promises,
My enemies invade me like a thousand doubting Thomases”
Brilliant; clearly it’s an emotional build; I wonder how he gets through an entire set in an evening with the obvious outpouring of feeling, technique, pure gritty vocals, and energy which go into just one song (and his video catalog bears witness to the fact that he’s completely committed to the audience in effort and sheer raw performance every time).
Leaving himself room for a last chorus which is like a shout of pain, and an instrumental outro which winds the song down beautifully, Josh deserves that wry smile which he allows himself at the end of the video. Frankly he knows it, and we know it; as musicians go, he’s in a league of his own.
Josh is also a particular favorite, not only because he’s a decent down to earth bloke, but because of his ground-breaking self-funded tour of the UK in 2009. In 2009, his EP ‘Values and Virtues’ was released independently, and with the proceeds of sales, he required no label or sponsorship, paving a new road for Indie artists with a good number of fans.
We at the Fish Pond wish him every success for 2013, and look forward to enjoying his material for many years to come.
You can view the video to “I Figured the World Out” here.
By David Mark Smith
www.globalmusiciansfishpond.com
