Review Summary: I've got my heart set on everywhere but here/ I'm staring down myself, counting up the years.
The unfortunate thing with a band like OneRepublic is, they will probably never get to the height that they want. As good as “Stop and Stare” and some other songs on
Dreaming Out Loud are, none of them will surpass the success of “Apologize”. “Apologize” is mixture of just plain pop, with chunky R&B beats and white boy swooning courtesy of Ryan Tedder. The song contained a somewhat depressing atmosphere, probably brought on by the violins, and all of these things together made one of the most successful songs of 2007.
And that is why
Dreaming Out Loud is disappointing in each and every possible way.
This is not to say that there are no other good songs on the album, just nothing to the calibre of "Apologize". “Say (All I Need)” is an excellent track, building up from a swarm of low pitched electronic sounding vocals to a vocal-led barrage of beauty, with Maroon 5-esqe falsettos and white boy R&B crooning. “Stop and Stare” is another huge standout on
Dreaming Out Loud, taking the roll of the official ‘rock’ ballad, the song takes advantage of Ryan Tedder’s strongest vocal performance on the entire album, with the guitars carefully withering along the surface of Ryan’s enduring vocals. However, after these few tracks, the album drops down to an astounding low and just gets too boring to take. “Goodbye, Apathy” tries to be musically hypnotic, but just dulls away and ruins a perfectly effective piano line. “Tyrant” is another song that has a catchy piano line in the verse and some decent guitar riffing in the chorus, but the song falls flat on its face, as it tries to be heavier than the rest of the album, and it just sounds completely forced and awkward on this album.
Troublingly enough, the rest of the album fails in a similar way in which “Goodbye, Apathy” does, they’re all just way too boring or way too bland to succeed. Ryan Tedder is a decent songwriter, and sometimes he puts together some real excellent songs, but on here he tends to make boring songs that try to be catchy pop songs that have a (small) rock influence while avoiding the main thing that makes OneRepublic successful; Ryan Tedder’s R&B influenced voice. If anyone were to get
Dreaming Out Loud, then I’d have to say it’d be pop fans just looking for catchy music, because a lot of the stuff here is fairly catchy. If you really aren’t into pop rock tingled with some R&B influences, then you should avoid this album at all costs.
Recommended Tracks:
“Apologize”
“Say (All I Need)”
“Stop and Stare”
