By Matthew Ritchie, Staff Contributor
Grade: C-
Ok Go just released a new album called Of the Blue Colour of the Sky and the majority of it is surprisingly bad.
When the band gained an immense degree of popularity in early 2002 with the hit song “Get Over It”, Ok Go quickly one-upped themselves in 2006 with the viral video for “Here it Goes Again”. Because they danced on a number of moving treadmills, the kitschy music video shot to stardom – or at least Internet stardom. Of course 15 minutes of fame is short enough, but when that exposure is on the Internet, it’s more like 15 seconds.
This month’s release from the band shows them fading even further into obscurity. It looks like the members of the Chicago alternative power poppers were given a large amount of money to produce this album, but the sound of the songs never fully formed.
At the helms of the production side is Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, MGMT and Mogwai). His trademark psychedelic atmospherics are all over this album. Fridmann is famous for making the Flaming Lips trippier, MGMT spacier and Mogwai heavier. With Ok Go’s new album, he made them sound shittier.
Ok Go has made strong two to three minute power pop songs in the past. None of those appear on this album. Instead the listener gets a bunch of half-assed Spoon and Prince songs. The drums are spacey, and set back from the mix; the guitars are in the foreground and play mediocre riffs. The vocals are truly abysmal. It sounds like the band is trying too hard. All the songs blur together and it becomes impossible to distinguish any real hits from the album.
For Ok Go fans, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky is sure to disappoint. Get back to the pop songs, guys.
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