A friend of mine with a history of bad relationship decisions sent Colbie Caillat’s eagerly awaited new single to me with a note reading “Very important”. Since the woman in question is quick tempered and will walk away from a relationship as soon as walk together, it is hard to deny Colbie’s track of resilience might be important to her.
And maybe to me, at least musically. I caught Colbie at Best Buy a couple of years ago, and here’s my review but yeah I loved her, she gave So Cal a good name and along with long time friend and collaborator Justin Young. The comparison was with Taylor Swift but she doesn’t have the singularity of a Swift (or the fan base for that matter) especially with the help of OneRepublic’s professional hit machine Ryan Tedder, Colbie has to assert her personality or get swamped.
The only time I love Ryan is when he records with Colbie, otherwise the guy drags every song he writes: hit after lousy hit. The current “Counting Stars is a horrorshow. The way he breaks into the song after the opening verse is a curse on the land. His best song “Brighter Than The Stars” is great because Colbie is intuitioning her Jason Mraz onto a pop arrangement which is Ryan Tedder.
“Hold On” would be unbearable in anybody other than Caillat’s hands. The charm of Colbie’s Cali girl sand and twist long limbed sweetness, listen to her best song “I Do” for a perfect example: the song jumps through hoops of joy, it is like the anti-Best Coast. The fuzzed out brightly lit darkness of Best Coast shades next to Colbie’s shimmering romance song. On another Caillat track “Breathe”, she folds herself into Taylor’s acoustic sweetness, from edgeless to a whispered standing behind whispered back up vocal, it is a highlight on Fearless which didn’t need one.
But with “Hold On”, Colbie grows up, goes mainstream, loses her Mrazness and sounds too generic. The song is very strong but you could imagine many other people recording it, including Ryan’s band itself. Still, it should break huge for her it hooks hard and Colbie doesn’t oversing it, which is a miracle, because it begs to be oversung, instead she allows her falsetto on the bridge to signify deep emotion.
Ryan’s production is a little over the top, those booming beats on the bottom of the chorus are intensely annoying, but like I said he does his best work with Colbie: she is so in control of her vocals, so professional, so unwilling to sell herself for the song, she can take product and turn it into a statement of strength, love and perseverance. Colbie’s next album is out Spring 2014.
Grade: B
