I admit, I came into this album expecting far too much. I expected something that would at least pull at your heartstrings, but do so in a way only Nick Lachey could. What slipped my mind is that Nick Lachey was once the frontman for the boy band 98 Degrees, something which, sadly, is very telling about
What’s Left of Me.
Nick recently got divorced from wife of a coupla years Jessica Simpson. Now, I’d be heartbroken to lose something extraordinarily good looking, but apparently Nick can’t have a thought outside of this, as pretty much every last song on this album is somehow about Jessica. I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising, considering this was touted as “his divorce album”. Regardless, the lyrical content of the album drags and drags. And then drags some more. Nick mopes about it, anguishes about it, nearly cries about it, hell, he does everything but just let it be on this album.
What makes it all the more horrific is that he (and whoever else is writing the lyrics) really can’t write a decent song worth half a sh
it. It’s all extremely typical and cliché, without any real individuality to it. It could be any guy who just broke up with his girlfriend. If he was a millionare and could get pretty much any lady he wanted. Regardless, be prepared for the onslaught of such gems as
”When all the noises are telling you to run away- Run to me!” or
“When you crash-when you burn-are you scared?-Will you ever learn?”. What’s more, it seems that even if Nick had a vastly improved writing ability, it just couldn’t get past the chestnut topics.
Then again, it probably wouldn’t get past Nick’s singing, either. Out of all the boy band frontmen that have tried to make a solo career, Nick possibly has the most generic voice and style of them all. Sounding like a frat boy who can, admittedly, sing to some capacity, it still doesn’t cover up the fact it seems like this could be the guy who lives down the street from you singing. What’s more is that his crooning is absolutely, positively, assuredly some of the most overly sentimental and look-I’m-trying-too-hard singing I’ve ever heard. There’s also one, small, nagging issue…he doesn’t have the power in his voice to carry this whole album. It’s strange, but he actually sounded better when he had the other guys from 98 Degrees backing him up. Thus, there’s a constant feeling of emptiness throughout the whole album that is yet another killer.
Well, not even the incredibly bland musicianship can save this album in any capacity. Coming from the school of Dashboard Confessional, it honestly sounds like a mixture of old and new of that band, with acoustic guitars and extremely light and vapid piano melodies abounding. While not every song on the album sounds the same for it, there are extremely similar clumps of songs, and no one song stands out in any fashion, except for perhaps maybe the first single (and title track),
What’s Left of Me. Even then, there are a few more tracks on the album that sound quite the same, so by the third or fourth listen of the album, that song even becomes unbearable.
To be honest, I really don’t expect anyone who is seriously into music (unless you have a strange affection for uber sappy bubble-gum pop) to get that far with this album. Listening to this five times in full has made me close to being insane, something that just can’t be said of many other albums (in a negative fashion, at least). Nick Lachey has created one of the most over-sentimental, faux-jaded, and manufactured pop albums of the past ten years. Sure, its worth something that he probably does feel most of this, and took the time to make the album. But that’s really the only thing I can find to even appreciate about the album. Stay away folks, and only hope that Jessica Simpson’s divorce output will be better.
