Fred again.. wasn’t the only artist releasing era-defining dance records in 2024. ‘In Waves’ by Jamie xx is an album that will live – and be relevant – forever.

There are many reasons to love ‘In Waves’ – you might want to take particular note of the way it’s structured!

ACTIVITY 1

Read the review of ‘In Waves’ by Jamie xx.

Jamie xx, ‘In Waves’

Listening to ‘In Waves’ is like being watered and given sunlight. As the refrain of of “never let you go” repeats, it’s like we’re being encouraged out of our seed casing. ‘Wanna’ makes us feel safe – and so we reach out of the darkness. As the opening to an album, it works perfectly – offering us a frame of mind that will allow us to lose ourselves in the songs to come.

Dancing – for many – means shutting down a lot of the devices we rely on during an average day. To enjoy dancing, we need to dial down our self-awareness and focus less on the tasks we might normally prioritise. Letting loose isn’t our default setting. That ‘never let you go’ hook belongs at the start of this record – without it, we wouldn’t shift to the relaxed position that will enable maximum enjoyment of the rest of the album.

On track two, the soulful ‘Treat Each Other Right’ is built around a lyric that echoes: “All we got to do is treat each other right.” “We” is the appropriate pronoun choice now that we’re being lifted out of a self-orientated mindset and into that communal, dancing mood. And the repeated “all we got to do” mantra only becomes more true the more we hear it. That adverb “all” is key: it highlights the simplicity of the situation.

Next, the intimacy of ‘Waited All Night’ makes sense. The first line asks us: “Isn’t this what you want? To feel connected to somebody on your side,” and, of course, the experience of connecting truly to someone is possible because Jamie xx has inspired us to lay down those shields we so often carry around with us.

Then ‘Baddy On The Floor’ begins with the line: ‘Thank you everyone for stepping out tonight,” because – by this point – we have stepped out: out of our heads and out of our anxieties. To have expected this kind of “stepping out” on track one would have been presumptuous. A quarter of the way through this opus, though, and we’re set. Jamie xx has brought us carefully to a place in which we can liberate ourselves from the things that often make us feel more tied up and self-conscious.

And now there’s a promise made: “Won’t stop, won’t stop, won’t stop until the drop stops.” The relationship between listener and Jamie xx has been secured and the music has rewarded us to the extent that we reckon it’s safe to commit to ‘In Waves’ until it finishes. Four songs in and we understand we’re on a journey and that there’s no point absenting ourselves at this stage, when the hard work of unwinding has already been done.

‘Dafodil’ fits beautifully at this point. The flower is a symbol of spring and symbolises the sensation of rebirth Jamie xx has filled us with. The instrumental ‘Still Summer’ follows. Jamie xx says he wanted this halfway point to be more “spacious” and not “too busy”. By this point, he’s used the words he needed to in order to secure our laidback state of mind. Words – or further instruction/reassurance – are no longer required. This ‘space’ speaks for the success of the first half of the record – we’ve been brought to a point at which we can be trusted not to fall back into bad habits. We’ve spent long enough with the record and we’re enjoying it to the point that we do not want to ‘leave’. Any later and maybe our real-life concerns might start twitching again in the background, but at this point we are utterly undistracted, absolutely invested, and completely deserving of the freedom Jamie xx allows us to interpret this wordless passage in the right manner.

Now arrives ‘Life’ – the record’s most raucous, catchy and upbeat moment. It hits even harder for coming immediately after the album’s most humble few minutes. The high of ‘Life’ would be impactful regardless of context, but right here, it takes us from quiet to loud in such an accelerated fashion, and we can’t help but whoop with excitement.

Following this, ‘The Feeling I Get From Tonight’, catches fire right on time. Those repeated lines: “The feeling I get from you” and “what a night” wouldn’t hit so hard any earlier on. The sentiments would feel more throwaway, but at this stage they feel well-earned – they feel true in a way they wouldn’t if we (the listeners and Jamie xx) had only been together for one or two tracks. ‘Breather’ does what the title suggests it will – it offers us a less hectic section, a less demonstrative one. It’s a carefully positioned song. Why would we need a breather any earlier? Why would we want one any later, when we’re all too aware that the end of the party is in sight?

With that idea of an impending conclusion in mind, ‘All You Children’ is a necessary next song. “We will dance and we will whirl,” promises Jamie xx and, of course, this is what we want to do. If the beginning of the record locked us into the right mental condition to appreciate it properly, this is the track that allows us to unleash and to take advantage of our emancipated state. Then there’s the lyric: “All you children, gather ’round.” Earlier on we might have murmured in a disgruntled fashion because we don’t typically like being framed as children, but Jamie xx has played his role as our guide well and so the metaphor is invested with a logic we might not have noticed previously.

Even the ‘Every Single Weekend’ interlude is significant – if mainly for its title which serves as a vow (as we do approach that final number) that we can return to this place next weekend; that this record, once finished, won’t actually be finished at all. Again, we’ve been reassured. If the album had closed too abruptly, the sudden descent back into reality would have been too harsh, too shocking; we’re grateful for the news – six minutes from the end – that we will be able to return to this frame of mind next weekend.

Finally, there’s the closer, ‘Falling Together’ and – because endings are so often reserved for synthesising an artist’s core message – it’s only right that Jamie xx uses this outro to qualify the importance of dancing. Music really is as crucial as he says. The three quarters of an hour spent with ‘In Waves’ have taught us that much.

ACTIVITY 2

Answer – based on the article above – the following questions. Really interesting to think about in relation to any piece of creative writing. If you’re studying for AQA’s GCSE English Language Paper 1, you’ll certainly find the ideas very useful.

  1. Why does ‘Wanna’ work well as the opening? How would the experience of listening to the album change if that track was missing? How does the opening song impact upon the experience of listening to the songs that follow?
  2. On track two, ‘Treat Each Other Right’ what effect does the repetition of “all we got to do” have?
  3. Why does ‘Waited All Night’ work better as a third song that it would as, say, an opening song?
  4. Why does ‘Baddy On The Floor’ work better as a fourth song that it would as, say, an opening song?
  5. Why does ‘Still Summer’ work as an instrumental? Why might an instrumental not have been so effective earlier on in the album?
  6. Why does ‘Life’ his particularly hard at this point?
  7. On the Feeling I Get From Tonight’, the repeated lines: “The feeling I get from you” and “what a night” wouldn’t hit so hard any earlier on. Why?
  8. Why does Jamie xx position ‘Breather’ at track 9 – no earlier and no later?
  9. What role does the ‘Every Single Weekend’ play as the penultimate track? What’s the point of it and why does it belong exactly here on the album?
  10. Why does ‘Falling Together’ make sense as the final song on the album?