The astute lyrical observations and folk-pop style of Jack Valero and his first two singles ‘Heaven Help Me’ and ‘Hollow Warmth’ have seen the singer-songwriter inspire comparisons to Tom Petty and Elvis Costello, as well as airplay from 6 Music and Radio X. Now Jack Valero shares his third single ‘Form Over Function’; the final episode in his first video trilogy. Listen HERE. Watch the video HERE.
‘Form Over Function’ finds Jack lamenting a love that never was, his voice shimmering with equal parts pain and power in a modern take on the torch song tradition – his conversational lyrics set to a very English take on Americana. The gentle strum of his acoustic guitar combines with mournful piano to build an hypnotic elegance over the song’s six-minute journey. Jack’s opening words immediately set the tone of overwhelming loneliness as he sings, “Walked into the crowd to be alone.” Its hook is similarly affecting: “If you ain’t gonna see me tonight, there really ain’t much I can do… but I never thought I’d leave here without your love.”
‘Form Over Function’ completes the video trilogy that Jack started with ‘Heaven Help Me’ and ‘Hollow Warmth’. While those visuals found Jack portraying characters wedged between isolation and eccentricity, this new clip takes a different approach. Jack plays himself, a young man who reacts to the song’s tale of heartbreak by retreating away from the world. While it provides some fun easter egg flashbacks to his previous videos, it also poses a bigger talking point. Can you tell if someone is secretly struggling? Or if they are hiding their troubles under a facade?
Jack says, “The final video in the trilogy explores the juxtaposition between the person and the performer in all of us and revisits some favourite characters. The last two videos have given the feeling of peering into a character’s most private moments, seeing their fears and anxieties. You can never know what bubbles away beneath the surface of someone and so here we blur the line between the character and showing my own vulnerabilities. I’ve talked about mental health before, but never gone too much into my own struggle with it. This video is the first time I tap into that without the safety net of a character to hide behind.”
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