The man who is known only as Owsley (like Madonna or Sable) has
\ncome out with an incredible self-titled debut CD. This is
\ndefinitely pop music for the present with very few retro leanings.
\nAnd yet unlike too few of today’s hot pop CD’s, this is a
\nconsistently strong CD throughout with no filler.<\/p>\n
In a perfect world, this CD would yield a slew of singles and
\nyet it would not be a stretch to think this might happen. After
\nall, a former bandmate of his, Ben Folds, hit the big time without
\ncompromising his style. The label is making a big deal of this (and
\nwhy not?), but the truth is only one song has somewhat of a Ben
\nFolds Five feel to it.<\/p>\n
That song, called “Sonny Boy”, is piano based and has the same
\nmelodic, sardonic quality of the best Ben Folds Five songs, while
\navoiding the snottiness that mar some of BFF’s work. I like the
\nfact that Owsley manages to sound modern without having the bad
\nattitude that today’s bands seem to feel is necessary to
\nsucceed.<\/p>\n
Many of the songs on
\nOwsley<\/i> fall roughly into two categories: they are either
\nquirky or heartfelt. On the quirky side, you have the opening tune,
\n“Oh No The Radio”, a marvel at both sound and sentiment. The song
\nhas plenty of sound effects and reminds me of the Fountains Of
\nWayne (who he opened for on a recent tour).<\/p>\n
The next song, “I’m All Right” is the only true nod to the
\nalternative rock scene as it cranks up the guitars while still
\nmanaging to stay poppish, not unlike the Foo Fighters. “Zavelow
\nHouse” is about a haunted house and has some nice creepy keyboard
\neffects.<\/p>\n
On the heartfelt side are “Good Old Days”, a catchy midtempo
\ntune about going back to your hometown and trying to recapture your
\nyouth. “Class Clown” is a ballad with a similar theme and even ends
\nwith the guitar riff from “Good Old Days”. “Sentimental Favorite”
\nis effectively bittersweet and has a nice keyboard part to
\ncomplement the song.<\/p>\n
If there is a flaw to
\nOwsley<\/i>, I would say it is the tendancy for overly slick
\nproduction values. While it works beautifully on many of the songs,
\nI think it undermines one song in particular called “Coming Up
\nRoses”, a sweet song that comes off sounding like a schlocky
\nballad. Overall, the songs are strong enough that they did not need
\nso many production tricks.<\/p>\n
One thing is for sure:
\nOwsley<\/i> is the type of CD chock full of gorgeous, inventive,
\nand tuneful songs that will likely stick in your head for a long
\ntime. This is a wonderful debut that I recommend to anyone who
\nthinks the pop music scene has gotten stale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":27885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7521],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-39273","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-owsley","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39273"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}