Manchester solo artist Gaz Kelly has just released his newest album Some Stories Don’t Have Happy Endings. It consists of 12 songs, all produced by Gaz Kelly and Jameel Farooq. A Scumbag’s Tale is the first track on the album. This is a prologue of Gaz talking about the album . Gaz goes on to say this album isn’t a love story, it’s more about bad decisions, lies, broken promises, and many more things. Quite an interesting way to open it up.
555 is essentially the starting song. It opens up with an acoustic guitar strum, developing into powerful vocals. Gaz really starts the story off strong with this track, leaning into how this character is not a nice person from the way he speaks about the woman in the track. He also insinuates that he just wants ‘dirty fun’ rather than meaningful connections. This does make me more intrigued for how the character is going to develop throughout each song.
Jenny Baby Don’t Be Crazy is the third track. It opens up a little bit more upbeat than the first song with a drumbeat in there. However, the lyrics still have the deep meaning like the first track. It’s as if this character has fallen for the girl but just cannot treat her right and doesn’t know how to. Gaz portrays this greatly with not only the lyrics but also the instrumental. The instrumental gets harder in the chorus but slowly gets slower in the verses. I’d like to think of this as a heartbeat getting faster and slowing down.
The fourth track Marijuana Blues is another acoustic track. This track is more about substance abuse and how everyone around the character is using some sort of drug. It is a great song and does spread awareness of how dangerous the effects of drugs can be. Gaz uses his voice in quite a powerful way too, making it sound lower when he mentions how the character will be ‘puffing away’ on marijuana.
The fifth track is Circles which sounds a little bit like Linger by the Cranberries when it starts. I would say this track is more of a sad one, but thinking about it they’re all sad so far. The song opens with a guitar and a bass with the drums coming in a little later. The melody is super chill but the lyrics are sad, with the character wanting the girl to ring him and break up with him as it seems like he can’t do it himself. The vibe I get is that the character just doesn’t know what he wants. Gaz has a lot of talent within these songs!
Cigarettes is the sixth track and Superficial Feelings is the seventh. Both these tracks are about alcohol. It is a lot to take in when the previous songs have been about substance abuse already, but it goes to show that Gaz is spreading awareness of what someone’s life could be like right now. They both have quite a mellow instrumental and one song speaks about what life was like during the alcoholism and the other speaks about reminiscing on those times
Eighth and ninth tracks are Chasing Constellations and Call It Midnight. Chasing Constellations introduces a new instrument, such as what sounds like a violin. Call It Midnight sounds more futuristic with the instrumental Gaz has used. The character doesn’t seem to be developing much as he is still thinking about this girl he clearly doesn’t want. It’s getting a little confusing now as the character’s feelings aren’t changing. I think this album is great but I think the story is dragging on a bit too much and some songs have the same meaning but with different instrumentals and lyrics.
The last two songs as well as the ending track, which is just like the prologue, are I Don’t Mind When It Rains, Photogenic, and Some Stories Don’t Have Happy Endings. Don’t get me wrong these songs are good but nothing stands out to me. They both have the same melancholic feelings. I think this is the characters emotions coming out within the instrumentals just as much as the lyrics are describing how he feels but it appears the same tempo has been used throughout the entire album. I would expect a little anger in the ending songs but it appears nothing of the sort has been used.
That being said the last song, Photogenic, seems to be more about the character seeing the girl for who she is and not for how he has perceived her through the entire time he has known her. The ending track Some Stories Don’t Have Happy Endings is Gaz talking about the album and how the album is more of a lesson than a story with a happy ending.
Overall, this album can only be described as a roller-coaster of events happening to someone. Emotions are high throughout this entire thing and Gaz has done a brilliant job of creating something someone might be able to relate to. I would highly recommend listening to this album in your own time and making your own opinions on it! Gaz is certainly a great story teller, that’s for sure!
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