by Keith Whamond
By all rights, this should be a good album. Like a cross between an easier-to-listen to version of Weezer and a boy band with guitars, OK Go might seem like the perfect package. They’ve got guitars, a fairly unique sound, and what has become the most important thing of all: a catchy single.
But OK Go is far from perfect.
“OK Go,” the self-titled debut album from the Chicago-based band, is a collection of 12 songs that define mediocrity. Take mediocre music, mediocre lyrics (“You don’t love me at all/But don’t think it bothers me at all”), combine the two, and you’re left with OK Go.
If OK Go came along two years ago, maybe this review would have been more welcoming. After all, this is a rock band at the core. God knows that in the late 90s, anything even resembling a band with a guitar would have been a good thing. But this is a different time, and (at least in a limited sense) new music is finally good again. There are some incredible new bands out there making some fantastic, and sometimes even meaningful, music.
That’s why OK Go falls flat. Yes, they are a rock band. But these days, rock bands are ideally expected to write something more than just catchy music. The days of writing pointless, sugary two-and-a-half minute pop-rock songs have been over since 1966. And that’s basically all this album is: saccharine-pop muzak with nothing relevant to say.
In many ways, this isn’t really even an album. Most of the songs on the album are rehashes of the previous song. The third and fourth tracks, “You’re So Damn Hot” and “What To Do” respectively, have almost the exact same intro. Déjà vu will be a common occurrence for anyone who (mistakenly) purchases this album.
One notable exception to this flood of pointlessness is the album’s eighth track, “There’s a Fire.” This is the one song where OK Go successfully achieves what it attempts throughout the rest of the album: It’s catchy, and more importantly, it actually seems to have a purpose. “I really mean it now/This time I swear I have not lied/This isn’t like the last time/I swear to God I have not lied”, sings Damian Kulash in a sad, almost yelping style. The simple guitars and drums all mix perfectly with an amazingly memorable keyboard line.
The band is made up of Damian Kulash on vocals and guitar, Tim Nordwind on bass (he’s got a crazy haircut, he’s the wacky one), Dan Konopka on drums, and Andy Duncan on keyboards and guitar.
Interview magazine recently said that OK Go had “huge hand-clap rhythms worthy of vintage Queen,” in what was probably the worst abuse of the printing press in the history of the world. To put this band in the same sentence as Queen is like comparing The Monkees with The Beatles: one is a mere imitation of the other.
OK Go has recently toured with several bands far more interesting than itself, including The Vines. In fact, the band opened up for Phantom Planet and Superdrag at Toad’s Place in New Haven on Sept. 8. Maybe the band will acquire some maturity by osmosis, because OK Go has a long way to go.
And hey, maybe they’ll do it. This band does have potential. Their musical style is, if nothing else, interesting. Their use of synthesizers, organs, and keyboards are something which most bands are lacking these days. The problem is that it’s all so sugar coated it ends up just sounding trite, and having songs like “C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips” doesn’t help. “Mediocre people do exceptional things all the time,” sings Kulash. Not in the case of OK Go.
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