The son of David and Victoria Beckham releases his first EP with the band The Breakers. Six tracks, guitars, Britpop and a song with the inevitable title: «WANNABE». After his first tours between the UK and the US, he now tries to prove that behind one of the most famous surnames in the world there is a musician with something to say.
In a family in which simply becoming “son of” is practically impossible, Cruz Beckham has chosen the path that, at least on paper, brings him closer to his mother than to his father. No professional football in David’s footsteps, therefore, but music, stage and records like Victoria, who before building her own fashion empire was Posh Spice and, together with the Spice Girls, one of the absolute protagonists of British pop in the Nineties.
The point, however, is that Cruz seems to only want to follow in those footsteps up to a certain point. Why «Wear & Tear»his debut EP released on August 21, makes no attempt to transform him into the new incarnation of Beckham-branded pop, nor to nostalgically exploit his mother’s musical past. On the contrary, the project built together with his band, The Breakersfocuses on guitars, drums, live energy and a decidedly more rock matrix, with a sound that looks to Britpop and British alternative much more than it looks to the girl bands of the nineties.
Of course, then a song titled appears on the EP «WANNABE»and pretending that the reference doesn’t make you smile would be almost impossible. In the Beckham household that word can never be just any word: Wannabe it was the single that transformed the Spice Girls into a worldwide phenomenon in 1996 and Victoria Adams into Posh Spice. Thirty years later, his son chooses the same title for one of the six songs with which he tries to build his own musical identity. An inevitable wink, perhaps, but also a rather intelligent way of dealing with a legacy from which it would be useless to try to escape.
Cruz Beckham’s first EP
Wear & Tear contains six songs — «Dumb Down», «Wear & Tear», «Better Times», «Loneliest Boy», «WANNABE» and «Seeing Red» — also selected on the basis of the reactions received from the public during the concerts of recent months. The project was recorded with The Breakers and produced by Justin Raisen and Lewis Pesacovcollaborators who have names like Kim Gordon, Joji and Charli XCX on their CVs.
It is a detail that is anything but secondary, because it explains well the direction chosen for this debut: Cruz does not seem to want to build a project around the celebrity patina of the Beckham surname, but around the much more traditional idea of a band that first rehearses the songs in front of people and only then decides which ones to record.
«This EP is a tribute to the concerts that started my career», explained Cruz when presenting the album. “I listened to everyone who came to the shows, the people I met, the songs they wanted released, and here they are. I can’t wait for them to finally be out in the world. It is the beginning of a beautiful journey that we can take together.”
A statement that captures Beckham’s attempt to build credibility in what is perhaps the most difficult territory for those who bear his surname: the one in which fame and talent must be separated, at least for the time it takes to listen to a song.
From the guitars of «Dumb Down» to the provocation of «WANNABE»
The EP opens with «Dumb Down»a high-intensity piece that addresses precisely the pressure placed on artists to make themselves simpler and more easily marketable, almost a particularly significant programmatic statement for someone who arrives on the scene accompanied by a level of notoriety that other musicians take years to achieve.
The title track «Wear & Tear» instead shifts attention to the experiences accumulated by living fully, on encounters and relationships, while «Seeing Red» takes the project towards bigger riffs and an overtly live attitude. «Better Times» highlights the interaction between bass, percussion and voice, while «Loneliest Boy»which has already become one of the most popular songs during concerts, suddenly lowers the volume and entrusts one of the most intimate moments of the album to guitar and voice.
Then it arrives «WANNABE»an ironic and deliberately provocative ending to an EP that seems perfectly aware of the short circuit. Cruz Beckham can change genre, education, aesthetics and musical references, but he knows very well that any choice he makes will inevitably be compared with the history of his family. You might as well turn that comparison into creative material.
And maybe this is exactly where Wear & Tear becomes more interesting than the initial curiosity generated by the surname.
From the surname Beckham to the test of the stage
Cruz’s, moreover, is not a sudden appearance constructed to accompany the release of a record. Before the EP came singles like «Optics», «Lick The Toad», «For Your Love», «Waste Your Pain» and «Yeah Yeah Yeah»while in recent months Beckham and The Breakers have mainly chosen small and medium stages to put the project to the test.
Their UK headlining debut took them to UK clubs, including three sold out dates at the Courtyard Theater in London, followed by their first American tour. An apprenticeship inevitably different from that of an unknown band – because when your name is Beckham the media attention arrives before the first note – but still significant for understanding the ambition of the project.
Even the British press began to treat him less as a family curiosity and more as a musician to watch. The London Standard he defined him as “nice” and with “obvious talent”, while Clash he underlined above all the absence of overproduction and the compactness of the band; Meter he went so far as to wonder if there really isn’t “a rock star in the making,” while The Guardian, The Times And TheTelegraph they respectively highlighted the psych-pop nuances of the project, the enthusiasm of the frontman and the solidity of the Breakers live.
And it is probably on stage that Cruz will have to continue to play his most important match.
In the days immediately following the release of Wear & Tearthe band will in fact be busy at Rock’N’Roll Circus of Norwich and Sheffieldbefore the festival appearances of Reading and Leedssteps that can transform the curiosity around the Beckhams’ son into something much more difficult to obtain: an audience interested in the songs even when the surname stops making news.
Because Cruz inherited from Victoria the choice of music and, inevitably, an amount of attention that very few debutants can imagine. But this is where the complicated part begins. Being the son of a Spice Girl can open just about any door; convincing those on the other side to stay and listen is a whole different story. With Wear & TearCruz Beckham started trying.
