The path to Santiago de Compostela has inspired pilgrims for a thousand years or more in their quest for solace and spiritual understanding that sees them on that long walk toward the hallowed ground and vaulted architecture of the titular saint. Many have come away with insight and enlightenment, answers and contentment, but I suspect that those who have come away with a killer pop song are fewer in number. But Le Concorde, the musical moniker of Stephen Becker is certainly one of that rare breed.
Not only a killer pop song but one that echoes with the sophisticated sound of the best of eighties pop, those bands making commercial headways in the heady post-punk days but doing so without having lost their edge, bands such as Prefab Sprout, The Blue Nile, and Aztec Camera.
“Saint James” is both gloriously nostalgic and the shot in the arm that the charts could do with right now, a reminder that there is a meeting point between authenticity and accessibility, between grace and groove, sheen and seduction.
It is also a reminder that you can find pop purpose in even the most highbrow of subjects; why do we need even more shallow, boy-meets-girl, boy-looses-girl, boy-writes-achingly-bland-ballad-about-it when we can have vibrant pop songs that contemplate the medieval European pilgrim trail and revel in the awe-inspiring cathedrals found there?
Poised, poignant, and purposeful. That’s my kind of pop music.
