Vance Joy: Dream Your Life Away [ATLANTIC]

Why you'll love it

This Atlantic and F-Stop Music edition carries all 13 songs of the Australian songwriter's debut, with "Riptide," "Mess Is Mine" and "Georgia." "Riptide" topped Triple J's Hottest 100 for 2013, and he won Best Male Artist at the 2015 ARIA Awards.

This edition

• Atlantic / F-Stop Music edition
• Original album artwork

About the album

Before he was Vance Joy, James Keogh was a key defender for the Coburg Football Club in the Victorian Football League, where he won best first-year player in 2008. He also picked up an arts and law degree from Monash University, then turned his full attention to songwriting.

It turned out to be a good call. Dream Your Life Away arrived in September 2014, with Ryan Hadlock producing most of it and John Castle taking "Riptide" and "From Afar." Side A opens with "Winds Of Change" and the stomping singalong "Mess Is Mine," then lands on "Riptide," that strummy, sun-bleached earworm, before "Who Am I" and "We All Die Trying To Get It Right." Side B brings the gentle "Georgia," "Red Eye" and "First Time," and closes with "My Kind Of Man," all of it written by Joy himself. It's warm, open-hearted folk pop, built on fingerpicked guitar, handclaps and that easy, conversational voice.

The debut launched a five-album deal with Atlantic and a career of big outdoor stages. Football's loss, as they say in Melbourne, though we suspect the Coburg back line has never quite recovered.

Also at Kops: more Vance Joy on vinyl · browse Pop

Tracklist

Listen

On Atlantic / F-Stop Music (cat# 545170-1), a reissue of the 2014 album.