The Script
The Script formed in Dublin in 2007 around singer-keyboardist Danny O'Donoghue, guitarist Mark Sheehan, and drummer Glen Power. O'Donoghue and Sheehan had spent years in the United States and Canada working as R&B songwriter-producers — alongside figures such as Teddy Riley and Dallas Austin — before returning home to build a melodic pop-rock band that folded hip-hop and soul phrasing into anthemic, radio-ready choruses. Their 2008 self-titled debut and singles like 'The Man Who Can't Be Moved,' 'Breakeven,' and the will.i.am collaboration 'Hall of Fame' made them one of the biggest Irish acts of the 2010s.
The Script list U2 among their influences, and O'Donoghue has spoken about U2's foundational place in Irish music and his early obsession with the record 'Boy.' The band inherits U2's template of the chiming, delay-soaked guitar and the patient, slow-building anthem that opens into a wide, arms-out chorus.
listen forPut U2's 'With or Without You' on before The Script's 'For the First Time' — hear how both ride a patient, pulsing build under a plainspoken vocal until the guitars swell and the whole thing lifts into a stadium-sized release.
The Script name Coldplay among their influences, and their early singles share Coldplay's blueprint of the confessional piano ballad — a plain, aching lead vocal set over spare keys and a melody built to sound huge without ever raising its voice.
listen forPlay Coldplay's 'The Scientist' and then 'The Man Who Can't Be Moved' — both open on lonely piano and a bruised, first-person confession, letting the melody carry the heartbreak rather than any big production.
Before forming the band, O'Donoghue and Sheehan worked as R&B and hip-hop producers, and they list the Neptunes — the production duo fronted by Pharrell Williams — among their influences. That grounding shows in the crisp, programmed drum patterns and the syncopated, R&B-inflected vocal phrasing threaded through their guitar-pop.
listen forThrow on the Neptunes-produced 'Frontin'' before 'Breakeven' — notice the same clipped, uncluttered beat and the way the melody slides and syncopates against it, R&B phrasing sitting inside a pop-rock song.