If you’re the type likes traditional male singer songwriter types such as Matt Corby or Ben Howard, then meet your new favourite man. His name is Alex Vargas. Not heard of him? You really should have, one of his performances, a cover version of Usher's More has had over 800,000 views on You Tube. It’s OK if you haven’t though – neither had we until an hour or so ago.
Born in Copenhagen but living in London for most of his life, Vargas has a collection of songs on his Soundcloud that to our ears at least suggest that he could have a bright future ahead of him. But if indeed he has, this won’t be first time around for Vargas. For in 2008 he was signed to Geffen Records and formed the band Vagabond who released a Xenomania produced debut album, You Don't Know the Half of It in 2009 which scraped into the UK Top 30, although the band split in 2010.
Now Vargas is solo, but probably enough time has passed that he would be thought of as a new artist to many, even if he has had 800,000 views on one particular You Tube cover.
Leaving the covers aside it’s his own material that has impressed us. He already has an EP which is virtually LP length called Howl and the song that has grabbed us instantly is Sweet Nothing. With a big radio friendly chorus, given the right exposure, we could easily see Vargas playing venues far bigger than the likes of a 300 capacity room such as the Lexington in London, which he’s due to play at the end of May. We're pretty sure he'll never be 'big on the blogs' – in fact some of his material is a bit too ‘acoustic trad rock’ for our tastes, but with his big set of lungs, which could do everything from soul to folk to blues (and on occasion tends to sound a bit but Bon Jovi) and the song Sweet Nothing, everything’s right.
NB: Late edit - Sweet Nothing is actually a cover of the Calvin Harris / Florence song.
Alex Vargas - Sweet Nothing
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2 comments:
Well, it looks like 'Sweet Nothing' is not Alex Vargas' original material but a cover of a fairly recent British No.1 single :) Done in good style nonetheless!
Thanks - post amended accordingly. Maybe if I'd not been writing blog posts for 20 hours non-stop I'd have realised that but it totally passed me by. Post now edited!
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