By Jessie Hethcoat
You've seen them dance on treadmills. You've seen them dance in a backyard. However, have you really been listening to what OK Go's putting down? Because you should. OK Go released their third album, "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky," on Tuesday, Jan. 12.
Unsurprisingly, OK Go is slinking back into their former obscurity and will most likely continue to do so if they don't come out with a new choreographed dance, and fast. Critics predict that OK Go's new album won't bring them many new fans, aside from a few die-hard Prince aficionados that will appreciate the Prince inspiration in this album that is difficult to ignore.
I have to admit: I am, and have always been, an OK Go fanatic. It's a condition dating back to middle school. Damian Kulash was (is) the object of my girlish fantasies along with many other lead-singing, guitar playing men of the 2000s.
From Derek Wibly of Sum 41 to Tyson Ritter from The All-American Rejects, I had magazine clipping collages of them all. But the difference between Kulash and the others? His band is actually doing something new and ambitious with their music.
"We're trying to be a DIY band in a post-major label world," Kulash said to journalist Ira Glass of "This American Life." OK Go never fails to bring innovation to the rock, pop and indie music worlds.
All the same, I couldn't say for sure whether I actually liked Kulash's new falsetto kick until my second round of this album. At this point, I was - you guessed it - transfixed. Their first single, "WTF?," joins the likes of Spears's "Slave 4 U," N*Sync's "U Drive Me Crazy" and other 90s pop bands, donning instant message lingo in their song titles.
OK Go's tongue-in-cheek reference aside, "WTF?" grows on its listener at each play. When Kulash sings, "you're so respectable/ but mmm I'm an animal," he comes close to the pure, insane, unparalleled sexiness of his mid-song screech, "this isn't like the- like the last time!" in "There's A Fire" off OK Go's self-titled debut.
OK, now let's pretend I'm not a slightly, hopelessly obsessed fan-girl and take a less hormonally-biased look at this album. Following "WTF?" is "This Too Shall Pass." Listening to this upbeat, choral song is like seeing the first sun in weeks. "All is Not Lost" is an even stronger, funkier, groovier attempt at the Prince-like inspiring tune that precedes it. Even the most somber song on the new album, "Skyscrapers," has bluesy hip-swinging, head-bopping base solo at its end.
It's all going splendidly until I get to the track, "I Want You So Bad I Can't Breathe." Seriously, guys? In theory, this should be the most appropriate track on the album, given that OK Go's target audience is, by and large, young women. It looks like it's going to be pretty cheesy, and then it's actually more so once you begin listening to it.
"Last Leaf" is more like it. This boy-plus-guitar ballad sounds like a song that could have been in "Once." It's short, sweet and actually contains a certain degree of sincerity, which is seriously lacking in "I Want You So Bad I Can't Breathe."
"Back from Kathmandu" begins the ending of "Of the Blue Colour of the Sky" in a soothing, beautiful way. A song for the romantic in all of us, and the female Kulash-obsessed OK Go fan, this song is a pure, unadulterated love song. It does its job well. "While You We're Asleep" starts off sounding like it belongs in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." However, just like the others, it changes and becomes a more danceable tune as it progresses.
Ending of the album is "In the Glass," which is a song unlike the rest. While many of the others keep a positive refrain or general message, this one's message is more debatable and therefore contradictory. The song's last line, "everyday is the same/ we're praying for rain" pretty much sums up the sadness that accompanies the joyful tunes throughout the cd.
Nonetheless, OK Go released a solid 14-track album that you all should check out. Even if you're less inclined to find a skinny-jean-wearing, guitar-playing 30-something like Kulash as dreamy as I do.
