OneRepublic
oh my my

One Republic have a problem—they are not evaluated objectively for what they release, which is good quality music.

Too much business, too many people around ready to do anything to speculate. Perhaps it was after the release of this album that the talented frontman Ryan Tedder, multi-instrumentalist, excellent singer (one of the most versatile voices around, capable of a perfect falsetto) and virtually author of everything, lyrics and music, became aware of it and dedicated himself exclusively to live performances, which have always been the band's strong point.

Formed in Colorado Springs, the group began to take its first steps in 1996 and until 2007 they were traveling around, without name and fame, cutting their teeth; in 2007 success finally came thanks to a very refined pop album Dreaming Out Loud that gave them a lot of visibility and especially made them the antagonists of Coldplay, a comparison that would heavily impact the band's future, which in my opinion does not reflect reality: the affinities are there, but One Republic is American and it shows, they draw from a pop with soul undertones, practically absent in the production of Martin & Co. In 2009 it was the turn of Waking Up, for me the best album so far, a record where pop is enriched with psychedelic rock elements; followed by Native in 2009, good but inferior to the first two. And here we are at 2016, at this Oh My My. An extremely rich album, full of arrangements, with excellent musical intuitions, all on the track, as is the nature of this band, of pop—a well-crafted pop open to contaminations and intelligent experimentation.

Let's Hurt Tonight, opens the album and is an excellent track, acoustic in the beginning, but soon shifts onto gospel-soul territory, finding a very personal form: how easy it is to plagiarize the past when moving on these genres, something that doesn't happen here. Oh My My is a catchy track, a disco-funky, simple, driven by an insistent bass line, always in the foreground in the piece: even here it would have been easy to recall the current masters of the genre, Jamiroquai or the latest Daft Punk, but the track doesn't feel already heard, it remains very personal; the same funky heart can be heard on Dream, though here the atmosphere is less essential, more sophisticated, and the track is original and interesting. Choke is a piano gospel that draws from the great American masters of the genre, with an excellent vocal performance from Tedder, between high notes and falsetto that isn't easy to hear today (live, I assure you, it's all his own doing, the guy can sing). A.I. is an experimental pop-dance featuring Peter Gabriel, a track not very commercial despite the pop label, courageous, closing with a very refined melodic-instrumental finale on Gabriel's truly chilling vocals. Better is another successful experiment, a syncopated piece, almost a slowed-down reggae, with very beautiful gospel choirs in the choruses. Fingerprint is a simple ballad led by a gently plucked electric guitar and a voice that performs in a beautiful falsetto.

I recommend this album to anyone who wants to listen to quality pop music, because if pop is daring, it's music worth listening to, every now and then.