Weekend Diversion: Tom Odell

Last week’s Weekend Diversion, Years & Years, was one I chose because I’d just seen The Graham Norton Show on the previous Friday. I watched it again this past Friday, which, it turned out, was the final for this season. The musical guest was Tom Odell performing “If You Wanna Love Somebody”, which is from his new album, Jubilee Road, out later this year. Unlike last week’s selection, I actually own one of Tom’s albums.

In June 2013, I bought his debut album, Long Way Down, on iTunes, a few days after it was released. I can’t remember why, exactly, I bought it, since I’d never heard of him, but I think that it was promoted on iTunes, maybe at a special price. I listened to samples of the songs and liked them well enough to buy the album. The album reached number one in the UK and New Zealand. I have no idea if it was even released in the Australia, Canada, or the USA, but if it was, it didn’t chart.

The debut single was “Another Love” (some language may be NSFW):


The song, originally released in 2012, before Long Way Down, reached number 10 in the UK, but never charted in New Zealand. It’s my favourite song on the album. There’s an alternative version of the video released a year later, and it’s very different [WATCH].

None of the other songs from Long Way Down charted well in the UK, or at all in New Zealand.

His best performing single so far was “Real Love”, a song by John Lennon that was used in the 2014 John Lewis Christmas Ad. In 2016, the song was released on Tom’s EP called Spending All My Christmas With You, but readers with a long memory may recall that I shared the John Lewis ad back in 2014. Here’s Tom’s video of the song:



And that will be the last performer I share I saw The Graham Norton Show or, at least, the last for several months. But I’m always finding or rediscovering songs thanks to television, one way or another, so I’m sure to share more for similar reasons.