John Spillane - Hey Dreamer

FINALLY ! John Spillane's new album 'Hey Dreamer' is available on Amazon.co.uk

Unfortunately his previous album, 'Will We Be Brilliant or What' is not yet available on Amazon.

I did the animated music video for 'We're Going Sailing' from the album 'Will We Brilliant or What', which is by far the most popular item on this site.

People seem to just connect with the song/animation combination... but you can read more about on the animation page of this site, or on another page where I go into some more detail.

The NEW album 'Hey Dreamer' is a lovely album. A lot of people felt the album 'Will We Be Brilliant or What' was over-produced, but on 'Hey Dreamer' John has pared back the production side of things substantially, and the album is simpler, and more beautiful for it.

When I first heard the album I said to John immediately that I felt it was a stronger album than 'Brilliant or What'. My feeling was that it crept up on you when you weren't looking. It took me a few listens for some of the quieter, subtler tracks to exert their full influence on me.

'Dunnes Stores Girl' is a really strong song, with a real 'single' feel - and I love it, whereas other songs, such as 'Beautiful Tears' are real gems which take a little time to fully take their place in your heart.

I mention 'Beautiful Tears in particular because it is one of my favourite tracks on the album now. The other thing I said to John when I heard the album was that I felt he was singing about things that mattered. The first lines of 'Beautiful Tears' include the lines: 'And the first thing you'll do is to stop pretending [...] there's no need to pretend.' One of the things I have always loved about John Spillane's music is he can sing about the simplest things, which we forget are so important - and his music can remind you of the beauty in the world around you.

I could go into some of the other tracks which really grew on me, such as 'The Only One For Me', but ultimately it's an album well worth listening to.

I'm not so crazy about the 'Mad Woman of Cork' track which was written by Patrick Galvin and put to music by John. It's probably the only track on the album that has gone in the other direction, in that I thought it was grand but over time I like it less and less.

Amazon has the album in the 'World and Folk' section, which I suppose is accurate, he's in the subsection 'Folk Bestsellers', but he's quite hard (for me) to categorise. He's a singer-songwriter I suppose, but that's a label I'm not crazy about. John has strong Irish music influences, and there is some Irish language in 'A Song for Rory Gallagher' - in fact I'm sorry there isn't another song or two with some Irish in them. Louis De Paor and John have written some lovely Irish songs together in a partnership they call 'The Gaelic Hit Factory'.

Anyway, I highly recommend this album - if you want to hear John Spillane, have a look at the 'We're Going Sailing' animation, but bear in mind this is from the previous album 'Will We Be Brilliant or What'.

John, who's a man of his word, approached me about doing an animation for the 'Hey Dreamer' album as he had promised he would when we did 'Sailing' but unfortunately, although we had some lovely ideas, the project didn't come to fruition. Maybe next time.