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Singer- songwriter met wat ruwe randjes die zijn inspiratie voor dit album in Nederland vond. Prachtig album.

Written early-on in 2021, ‘Survival of the Friendliest’ is a direct reaction to the dreariness of those hard Winter months. Sidelining the endless negativity of social media, Beans turned back to nature and began to focus squarely on the brighter-sides and silver-linings of life, from a time when they seemed few and far between. The result is a record that finds the long-established protest singer changing his tune to one of eternal hope and optimism, peace and possibilities.

“I wrote [‘Survival of the Friendliest’’] when the bad news was everywhere.” remembers Beans. “I switched off social media, looked to nature and zoomed out to write songs about a bigger, longer and stranger story. There are no songs about Brexit, about coronavirus, about climate catastrophe. I’d sung those songs already. I’m not naive to the challenges we face as a species and I’m not ignoring that. But in order to tackle our current predicament, I feel we need to be in a good place mentally and spiritually. This is an album about finding that peace in preparation for the road ahead.”

Taking its title from ‘Humankind’ by modern thinker Rutger Bregman, the book’s positive philosophies played a pivotal influence in shaping the course of the record.
“[Bregman] explains why humans are fundamentally good and generally nice, we just get confused and focus on the negatives easily.” says Beans. “The title of the album points to the overarching theme, but as you can imagine things deviate a little, it’s a Beans on Toast record after all.”

With these philosophical notions taking pride of place on the album’s widescreen opener “A Beautiful Place”, Beans’ new record finds optimism in more nuanced places too. Take album centre-piece “The Commons”, for example, a traditional folk song that opens a constructive debate on how land ownership reforms could offer some hope and light for the common people of England. Inspired by the Nick Hayes book ‘The Book of Trespass’, it led to the blossoming of an unlikely new friendship.

“That book taught me more about England than 40 years of being English” says Beans. “After writing the song I sent it to Nick, went out to visit him and we’ve become friends. He came by the studio to lay down some banjo and sing on the song.”

Tracks:
1. A Beautiful Place (4:00)
2. Stones (2:34)
3. Blow Volcano Blow (3:01)
4. Not Everybody Thinks We're Doomed (3:22)
5. Tree of the Year (3:47)
6. Humans (3:01)
7. The Commons (4:11)
8. Let's Get Married Again (3:29)
9. Apples (4:41) met Dizraeli
10. Ready for Action (3:13)
11. Love Yourself (4:51)



Staat er compleet op, 10% pars mee gepost. Met zeer veel dank aan de originele poster. Laat af en toe eens weten wat je van het album vindt. Altijd leuk, de mening van anderen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l116g3agY-g&feature=emb_imp_woyt