OK Go - Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
Rating
RIYL
RooneyVampire Weekend
Hot Hot Heat
We Are Scientists
Release Date
01/12/2010
Label
Capitol RecordsTracklist
1. WTF?2. This Too Shall Pass
3. All Is Not Lost
4. Needing/Getting
5. Skyscrapers
6. White Knuckles
7. I Want You So Bad I Can't Breathe
8. End Love
9. Before the Earth Was Round
10. Last Leaf
11. Back from Kathmandu
12. While You Were Asleep
13. In the Glass
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In the current age of viral, musicians can discover fame in more ways than just their music. Lady Gaga’s over-the-top videos are evidence of this, but arguably the finest example would be OK Go’s seemingly overnight rise to fame with their treadmill-centric video for “Here It Goes Again”. The song itself was catchy, but it was the video itself that gained the band most of their recognition. Thankfully, they have the chops to back up the hype and merit the fame. Their third and latest full-length, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, proves that OK Go are ready to move forward from the polish of their previous work and set their sites on something a little more resolute and well-rounded.
With Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, OK Go isn’t looking to drop everything that defined them as musicians. They still operate with the same pop sensibility, but they’ve also made it clear that they need not rely on sugar sweet hooks to captivate an audience. Tracks like “This Too Shall Pass” and “WTF?” ooze with potential to be popular singles, but they also mesh well in an album whose consistency is dictated by heavy synth and an overall wall-of-sound appeal that exists even in the quietest moments of the album. Singer Damian Kulash has clearly been working on his falsetto, and his Prince-like vocals do wonders for the funk leaning so inherent throughout the course of the album, and specifically on tracks like “I Want You So Bad I Can’t Breathe” and “Needing/Getting”.
OK Go has always flirted with the idea of soul music. Both of their previous full-lengths certainly carried instances of it, but now it appears that they’ve developed an interest in making it an integral part of their sound. This change in style may cause them to lose some fans and confuse others, but it will undoubtedly cause them to pick up a few along the way. Sonically, they’ve matured immensely and opened themselves up more to the idea of experimenting outside of the simple pop structure. Generally when a band of their nature does this, they seem to leap from catchy to pseudo-shoegaze, but OK Go found the perfect medium between the two and went for it with an impressive amount of confidence.
It may not be the album fans are expecting, or even a logical progression for OK Go, but Of the Blue Colour of the Sky is a soulful pop album suffused with equal parts retro and postmodern appeal. Their videos for “WTF?” and “This Too Shall Pass” show that they’re still ready to be the kings of viral, but they’ve given themselves the credibility to back their renown. It is safe to say that there are not many OK Go fans out there who would expect them to craft an album that required repeated listening to truly soak in, but they’ve gone and done just that.
--Dant Rambo
Comments
San Jose, CA
Good review.
last.fm/user/thetsaiguy