Badly Drawn Boy – About a Boy (2002)

I had seen the film around the time when it was released, but I can't remember Badly Drawn Boy as a band from that time. It was only later after their album Born in the UK that I started listening to the band. One of my best friends was playing it in car when we were driving around Finland. I really liked their laid back attitude and funny lyrics. Although, it's maybe wrong to say 'their' as Badly Drawn Boy is really just a person. Anyway, later on I started listening to Badly Drawn Boy's other albums and to my surprise they had done music for the film About a Boy, based on Nick Hornby's novel. This album is not by far his best album, but it does have some great songs on it and the melodic piano sequences are quite enjoyable. Badly Drawn Boy is just the kind of folk rock I listened to quite a lot at the turn of the decade.



While living in London, Nick Hornby's books have become quite dear to me. I feel like London is a central character in all of them. Previously I had only read High Fidelity, which of course as a music collector I really enjoyed. I saw the film first before reading the book. Back in the day, Hugh Grant films were somewhat embarrassing and I didn't think much of the film even though I kind of enjoyed it. I only read the book quite recently and I enjoyed it much more than the film, even though, now I also own the film on a DVD.

Most of this album is small instrumental bits from the film. This is very typical for a soundtrack album. It makes the album as a whole a bit more boring than some other albums by Badly Drawn Boy. But there are some great songs in there as well. I particularly like Something to Talk About and A Minor Incident.

Badly Drawn Boy also makes quite good music videos. Something to Talk About has a video and of course it's sequences from the film, along with a storyline and some sequences of Badly Drawn Boy singing the song. It also has quite a morbid material about the dead duck which is probably familiar to the fans of the film and the book.

I remember looking for this album quite some time but for some reason it was always quite expensive, until I actually found it really cheap with a couple of pounds used in a London based record store.

I feel like Badly Drawn Boy's best albums came out around the mid-00's and I haven't really been that excited about his newer albums or songs. I even find myself skipping some of the songs when they come up in my iPod when it's on shuffle. Then again, sometimes when I'm in the mood, this music really speaks to me and I do enjoy at least some of his songs and albums a lot.

Listen to the album on Youtube.