This is Pop Essays, our weekly series uncovering yet more of the musical moments of genius that time has all but forgotten, which we never did. This week, it’s an underrated Brit-Cypriot singer-songwriter, 20 years on from their debut…
- Artist: Kristian Leontiou
- Song: Some Say
- Released: 22/11/2024
- Writers / Producers: Kristian Leontiou / Pete Wilkinson / Sarah Erasmus / Ash Howes
- Highest UK Chart Position: #54
- Chart Run: 54 – 79
Major record label incompetence is a topic I find myself writing more and more about as this series progresses. Sometimes, their actions are more of a catalyst in the fate of an artist’s career than it is at other times.
But one thing that is common to all of them, and is so infuriating as a music lover, is when the talent at the heart of it all is so promising and yet finds such hope and potential squandered away, oftentimes by factors outside their control that could so easily have been avoided.
Just ask Kristian Leontiou. Born into first generation Greek Cypriots in north west London in 1984, his route into music was an unconventional one. Having struggled with dyslexia in school, despite teacher encouragement, he instead dropped out and opted to take a different route that was less styltifying, namely, in karate, snooker and also semi-professional bike racing, as well as temp jobs as a barber and a cable layer.
Simmering away in the background of all of this was his desire to make a career for himself as a singer, songwriter and producer, something he had a keen interest in from a young age, often going along to gigs with his sister, Alexia. It was in mid-2002 that his chance encounter that changed everything came along.
Writing songs since he was a teenager, it was whilst one of his home produced demos was playing in an office somewhere, that it piqued the ears of Mike Sault, an A&R bod at Warner/Chappell Music Publishing, who had worked extensively with Dido, and who was in a meeting in the next room and immediately pursued him. It was Mike who got him his publishing deal, which then led to being signed to the same management team as Avril Lavigne and Coldplay.
Putting him to work with the husband and wife songwriting team of Pete Wilkinson and Sarah Erasmus, a lot of Kristian’s vocals and early production from his demos remained on eight of the songs that wound up on his completed first album. By October 2003, Polydor Records had signed him for an album deal worth £1m.
The early-mid 00s had seen a new wave of contemporary singer songwriters, with Dido in particular having been the one to break down the barn door, with the phenomenal worldwide sales of her debut album No Angel in 2001 (kickstarted by one of it’s biggest hits, “Thank You”, being sampled by Eminem on his track “Stan”) and its follow-up, Life For Rent, in 2003, as well as David Gray with his similarly slow burning but massive selling White Ladder album in 2000.
And there was little to suggest that Kristian couldn’t follow in those illustrious footsteps. However, this being the mid 2000s, and Polydor being the biggest dedicated pop music label there was at that time, meant a clash of vision with label execs that boiled down to what they saw on face value. Or, to put it in the bluntest terms possible, they were judging him on his image.
Sporting a laid back look of a buzz cut, facial piercings, tattoos and baggy jeans, they assumed and believed that he would be better off fronting gangster rap or skater rock. In reality, he possessed a voice that was soulful, almost wise beyond its years and powerful, and lyrics that were emotive and stirring against contemporary sounding beats. In fact, if Kristian was to draw comparison with anyone, his voice sounded more akin to the likes of Seal, Phil Collins (of whom he was a fan) and also Peter Cox of 80s band Go West (on which note, we say it’s a crime that Kristian never got to do a cover of “The King of Wishful Thinking”. That would have been dreamy).
Still, the marketing campaign for Some Day Soon, Kristian’s debut album, kicked into high gear in the spring of 2004. After being tipped as “One to Watch” for that year along with Keane, McFly and Natasha Bedingfield by industry bible Music Week, he supported Nelly Furtado on tour, had a big industry showcase at Islington Academy (which he then confessed, in an interview to The Guardian years later, was the worst performance of his life) and as the tagline in the TV and press adverts for his debut announced, listeners were invited to “Discover the name behind the amazing voice”.
The first single showcasing this amazing voice and gift for writing a great song was the reflective guitar pop rock of “Story Of My Life“. Playlisted on both Radio 1 and Radio 2, it was in the top 10 of the airplay chart by the time it came to make a very respectable top 10 sales debut at #9 following its release in May. Some Day Soon was released a week later, making an initially modest first showing at the lower rungs of the top 40.
August was when the album got cooking on gas, finally breaking into the UK top 20 with the release of his second single, the stirring power ballad “Shining“, which despite sounding for all the world like a much bigger hit (we say it should have been a number one), just missed out on the top 10 (it debuted and peaked at #13), although it was another hugely playlisted record, reaching the top 5 of the airplay chart, and sending sales of Some Day Soon to gold status (150,000 copies).
Clearly, Kristian had the capability to win over music lovers – your present writer included, who loved the album and played it endlessly – and with his first UK tour announced for that November and December, Polydor sought to keep the momentum going with a third single. Alas, this was where the trouble started…
A few different options would have worked, indeed “The Years Move On” and “Love Is All I Need” both sounded like prime contenders. Eventually, “Some Say” was settled on. It was one of the songs on the album, however, that did sound a little unfinished to our ears when we first heard it. Clearly, Polydor thought so too, as it was promptly remixed for single release by Ash Howes.
It was thus beefed up a bit more, with more pronounced drum pads and guitar, and Kristian’s vocals sounding a little less buried in the mix than they were on the original. It was also a little more mid-tempo in pace than the first two singles, with a lyric laying it on the line to a lover who isn’t being clear about what they want: “No more trouble in my soul / No more time to make me whole / So today I’ll try to tell you, I’ll be on my way / Show me where the answers live / Show me where the truth forgives / In my head I’ve tried to reason, I’ll be on my way”.
The chorus is one that pleasantly becomes hooky the more you hear it: “Some say the road is clear / Some say confront your fears, some say / But can you feel the love that I do?”. Backed with a video shot at the Union Chapel in Hackney, where Kristian and his band perform before a crowd as the weather changes from bright sunshine to falling leaves to rain to snow over the song’s duration, it was at least seasonally fitting for its late November release.
But whatever airplay and press interest was forthcoming to the first two singles was altogether absent for “Some Say”, and so although debuting and peaking some way outside the top 40 at #54 was disappointing and undeserved, it was frustratingly inevitable. Kristian felt quite strongly that his lack of breakthrough relative to how much Polydor had committed to was directly correlative to him being sold on his image, which was never where he saw himself going.
What sealed the deal – or rather, ended it – with Polydor was in April 2005. A cover of Tracy Chapman’s classic “Fast Car“, which he had performed on tour, had been lined up as his fourth single, which was set to be added to a re-release of the Some Day Soon album, with new artwork and a revised track list. Whilst the re-release did go ahead, the single suffered that most ignimonious of mid-00s fates, and was relegated to a download only release, thus rendering it inelligble to chart. A proposed deal with Island Records in the States ultimately fell through as a result too.
However, it was not to be the end for Kristian in music, even if it wasn’t in a solo endeavour. A lot of his contacts he made, including with producers and writers, led to him providing guest vocals to Faithless on their 2006 album To All New Arrivals, and then forming the brilliant indie rock band One EskimO, releasing their first album, Hometime, in 2009 (which was produced with Rollo Armstrong from the former band) and the follow up, Faster Than Turtles, in 2017, which saw them tour both the UK and the States extensively.
In the time since, he has branched out into running a successful Dim Sum restaurant in Hackney with his wife, called – geniusly – My Neighbours The Dumplings. Although Kristian’s memories of the time he briefly tasted mainstream pop success 20 years ago may not exactly inspire fond feelings, the truth of the matter is the Some Day Soon album is still a comfort album for us and were a limited vinyl run to drop, we’d be here for it. It is an example of mellow pop at it’s finest from the mid 00s, and “Some Say” is just one of many cases in point.
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