Back in 2008, A Larum – the début LP from English “nu-folk”* troubadour Johnny Flynn – crept out into the world with hardly a whisper.  Move forward a couple of months and A Larum was a solid feature on a whole slew of “Best of 08” lists (my own included) and pretty much everyone I spoke to had good things to say about it.  Of course, prior to the record’s release Johnny had already become a darling of the blogosphere, but the whole incident still felt like a case of an album becoming successful purely because it was great.  To listen to A Larum was to do so much more than simply enjoy some great music; it was a way of sticking it to “the man”, showing the majors that success could be achieved on merit and not simply off the back of huge marketing budgets.  It was all the good things about the internet’s musical revolution writ large.

Been Listening, Flynn’s sophomore effort, has been out since June this year, and has yet to recapture the excitement of it’s predecessor.  It’s received favourable reviews from all the usual suspects, but it hasn’t captured the imagination of my musical peer group the way A Larum managed.  In theory this is something off a surprise, as all the ingredients are there for it to be a hit.  It has the obligatory Laura Marling collaboration, and following the continued ascent of Mumford & Sons, Noah & the Whale, et al, the success of a new record by Johnny Flynn – who appeared at first to be the doyen of the increasingly incestuous London-centric nu-folk scene – seemed pretty much assured.  And Been Listening is not a bad record by almost any measure, so why has it pretty much sunk without trace?

If you want my opinion (and the very act of your reading this page is a tacit acceptance that you do), it’s because all he’s doing is retreading old ground.  It’s all well and good to pick a style that works and stick with it, but when you’ve produced something as accomplished and adept as A Larum, the pressure is certainly on for you to better yourself.  Follow-ups to classic albums are never easy – the expectation is always too high, the assumptions far too grand – and often bands get slated for going off in a completely different direction (just look at MGMT for a case in point).  But however great the risk of alienating a fan base may seem, Been Listening serves as a poignant reminder that the alternative – simply trying to cash the same cheque twice – is a far more suicidal option.

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