Meg Shaw – What You Deserve

Five months and counting without gigs. Anyway to fill the void I’ve been asked to review the debut single by 20 year old Worcester singer/songwriter Meg Shaw. Ironically it has been tipping down overnight so I hope Worcester hasn’t flooded as usual. Meg released ‘What You Deserve’ on 7th August.

Meg is due to enter her final year at LIPA in Liverpool and sadly because of Lockdown she missed the chance to perform at the legendary Cavern Club. When I saw her single clocked in at a very lean two minute 33 seconds, I had visions of it being a short twee acoustic style number but it opens with an RnB, disco/70’s soul feel to it. But Meg isn’t trying to be something she isn’t, her voice is clearly young white female yet her crystal clear vocals work perfectly with her backing track. You can hear every word she sings and she allows us to share her thoughtful well constructed lyrics.

The song is slickly produced but isn’t over produced especially on the vocal side where it could have been easy for Meg to go for a more generic soulful sound rather than allowing the true youthful feeling of her voice to perfectly complement the more mature urban sounding instrumentation.

A very promising first release from a young performer to keep an eye on in the future.

Mark Wakeman