pitfaltina's Full Review: Gavin DeGraw by Gavin DeGraw
As you can tell from my earlier Gavin DeGraw review, I am a huge Gavin fangirl. Don't let that put you off this review, though, as I am pretty heartless when it comes to music and I'll tell it like it is.
It's been a very long wait since Gavin's freshman album, and I wasn't sure we were ever going to see the sophomore effort, so the simple fact that I now possess a second Gavin DeGraw album is almost enough for me. For future reference, J Records, nearly FIVE YEARS between albums is too freakin' long! Ahem. Sorry, got sidetracked by a mini rant there. So, was the wait worth it? Oh my, yes. Especially since the songs "Relative" and "Cop Stop" were included. Guess Clive Davis didn't want the one-woman picket line I threatened in my last review. Not like that matters any more since Clive has finally been put out to pasture (YES!!!). But anyway, on to the album.
The album starts with the ubiquitous Top 40 radio designee, "In Love With A Girl". This track starts with some fairly typical Gavin heavy guitar and jumps straight into the song. The lyrics are fairly erudite for what is essentially a basic love song. No rhyming "love" with "above" or "glove" here; instead, love is described as "the warmth of the one who has put in the time and you know is gonna be there". That's not exactly the most romantic of sentiments, but is actually much more reality-based than the usual insipid love balladry. The song itself follows the standard Top 40 formula of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus X infinity, but it's put together in a pleasing package that transcends the ordinary, with lots of stomping guitars and drums. This is a great song to blast out the car windows on the way to the beach. Grade: B+
We move next to another formula song, Next To Me (Wait A Minute Sister), where Gavin wants the girl and can't get her. This storyline is possibly the most common after "I'll love you forever" and "You lying, cheating scum", but still Gavin does it justice. Gavin is talking to the object of his affection with wonderfully wry lyrics ("Like a nightmare naked in school" and "Follow my eyes to your hips"). The music sounds fairly old-school until we get to the bridge, which is nicely stripped down. This song makes for good background music. Grade: B-
The next track, "Cheated On Me", brings up the aforementioned "lying, cheating scum" topic in a different way. Gavin is telling his significant other that he knows she cheated, but "[he's] a jealous guy, [he] hear[s] people talk" and actually admits to some fault here. In fact, the lyrics go so far as to admit he drove off a previous love with his suspicious mind. How refreshing for a "cheating" song! The melody is rather plodding and the harmony pretty basic, not the sort of modern folk/funk sound I've come to expect from Gavin. The track feels like churned-out cookie-cutter pop fodder and is pretty disappointing. Grade: C-
Things start to get a bit boring at track four, "I Have You To Thank". Gavin continues with the standard love songs, here exploring the fourth most popular love theme in the universe, i.e. "how loving you has improved my life in _____ manner". Lyrically, this is Gavin at his worst ("because of you I never want to break up"), and I'm afraid to say that melodically the story isn't much better. This sounds like a teenage girl singing out a diary entry in a man's voice. Very amateurish, and my least favorite track on the CD. Grade: D
And now for track five, "Cop Stop". Woo hoo, I can't believe I have this track on a CD! I have heard this live several times and it sounds fantastic recorded. Gavin's been performing this one for a loooooong time, and you can tell from the near-improvisational departures from the melody. You can't do that without a lot of practice! The lyrics are sublimely clever ("I won't tell you lies or treat you like a rental car like other guys"). This is Gavin going after the girl and getting her. This is a good old-fashioned rocker that I've loved for years with some pleasing new additions (background vocalists on the chorus) that make the song play in your head for hours after you've turned off the iPod. "I'm a cop, stop, baby, I'm a cop, stop!" Love it! Grade: A-
Track six, "Young Love", is a very tender-hearted ballad about an early love that is, oddly enough, described in battle terms. ("For the young lovers taking the hill, one plants a flag while the other is killed") If you view love as a war between the heart and the mind, I suppose it could be true. Gavin really lets loose on this track and finally unleashes the passion I've heard in him. We get some soulful wailing that at times almost makes me feel the pain of his first love. Grade: B+
The next track, "Medicate The Kids", is quite simply the most evocative and convincing argument against Ritalin that I've ever heard. Gavin sings, in an perfectly irony-laden voice, of how we tell kids to "just say no" to socially unacceptable drugs, and them drug them to the gills in order to program socially acceptable behavior. I'm laughing in my head as I type this, because it is so true. Visit an elementary school psychologist some time if you don't believe it! The lyrics are simply gorgeous ("There's nothing you can't flush out, there's nothing you can't kill" and "Substances make you dumb unless you get 'em from someone who loves you...paid for those tests for you" are just beautiful and fiercely veracious!) Gavin takes both the part of the disgusted observer and the much-maligned "hyperactive" child in this song, the observer snidely commenting on adult hypocrisy while the child begs, very wryly, "Why don't you just back off of us before we go crazy?" The music is driven by heavy-handed guitars and is accented by some interesting drum work, including some nice bongo lines. If there's an association of parents out there somewhere protesting behavior-altering drugs for children, congratulations, here is your anthem on a silver platter. Grade: A
The next track, "Relative", is the song I most anticipated, and I'm simply delighted that it was included on this album. The lyrics take on what is, as far as I know, a never-before explored topic in the music world, that of relativity. You know, how events/things/people seem different in people's perception according to their upbringing, experiences, circumstances? Deep stuff, and very thoughtfully and humorously explored here. My favorite line: "A wet dream isn't the real thing, it isn't really anything, but at least it makes a spark". I still laugh every time I hear that lyric! Gavin's been singing this one for a while, too, and he's brought all his feeling over his many performances to the forefront in this delivery. He wails, he grunts, he rolls the word "rich" in a superb way. This track is even more than I hoped for. The addition of background singers on the chorus adds a touch of drama that is most welcome. THIS is the kind of music that the record industry needs to crank out! Grade: A++
"She Holds A Key", the next track, is a gospel-tinged love anthem in which a woman has the upper hand in the relationship. The verses are very low-key, which only aids in the build-up to the explosion of emotion on the choruses, This is another one of those songs Gavin has been doing in concerts for a while. He's lived in these words for so long that he invests the delivery with life experience and believability. The emotion climaxes on the final choruses when the background singers add gospel accents and harmonies that up the passion quotient. This track is pure ear candy. Grade: A-
Track ten is a pleasant enough ditty called "Untamed" that explores love yet again, this time from the angle of a man resisting the personality changes that a woman always tries on her man. Come on, you know it's true, a woman always tries to "improve" her man! Gavin sings of "outgrow[ing] the narrow, protective container" and not "living in one of your cages". My biggest wish for this tune is that, for someone who longs to be untamed and free, Gavin had sung this with less of a pop sound and more of a rock sensibility. This song is nothing too noticeable, but I bet you don't skip over it. Grade: B-
"Let It Go" follows like a breath of fresh air on a smog-filled commute. Gavin intones this track with an almost wistful air, asking his lover to let go of the whole world and live in the moment, even while knowing it's not going to happen. "Why don't we play hooky/we could both get lucky/better to get lucky than to go to work today" is wishful thinking sung aloud. The guitar line is soothing and airy, backed by standard ballad drumming. This is a great song to play when you're lounging in bed playing "sick" from work with YOUR lover. (wink wink, nudge nudge) Grade: B+/A-
The final track, "We Belong Together, is almost a let down from an otherwise solid effort. Gavin is singing about a relationship yet again, this time roaming over the most overused topical landscape ("I'll love you forever"). If Gavin weren't such a gifted lyricist I'd pull my hair out. This song sounds rather derivative at the chorus, sort of like the unholy marriage of Daughtry (Ick!) and Hinder (Double ick!). This is one of those tracks that you'll play long enough to learn you are utterly bored by it, and you'll skip it thereafter. But hey, not every song can be a "Relative"! Grade: C-
Overall, this album is a decided improvement over Gavin's last outing. The overproduction of Mark Endert from the Chariot Era is not missed at all. Album producer Howard Benson is wise enough not to cover Gavin in layers of sound and keeps the instrumentation very spare and clean. The album is terrific lyrically, but feels a bit same ole, same ole thematically. Enough about love, Gavin, every other male vocalist out there is singing about love. Give me some more unconventional topics like "Relative" and "Medicate The Kids"!
I paid $13.88 for this album and was glad to pay it. (Except, Walmart? $13.88 for a new release the day it's released? Really? You've never heard of a new release sale? Please.) This is a great album for the already-a-fan listener, and the standout tracks ("Relative", "Medicate The Kids", "In Love With A Girl") will win Gavin some not-yet-a-fan listeners. There's a couple of clunkers on the CD, but hey, that's why they invented the skip button, so don't let that deter you. I've owned the CD for seventeen days now, and I've almost worn grooves in it except for those few bad apples. Overall Grade: A-
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