Spring Break
'Oh No' an Oh Yes
OK Go reminescent of talented Weezer
Sarah Fine, Staff Writer
Issue date: 9/30/05 Section: Lifestyles
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Best feeling in high school? Easy. The last bell of the day. You heard that bell and stopped listening to your teacher. Sometimes, over the din of books making that satisfying thud at the bottom of a locker, you didn't even hear your friends, heading out the doors to the parking lot. That final bell was a primal call, silencing all other urges and compelling you to reconnect to the afternoon sun and your car stereo.
Unfortunately, modern rock circa high school was unfulfilling. I mean, really. Creed? Matchbox 20's "introspective" era? Vertical Horizon?? That's hardly the right soundtrack for an afternoon of trash-can bowling with a friend's Datsun pickup.
Personally, I blame Weezer.
I spent all of fifth grade loving "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here," plenty of my junior high discovering Pinkerton and, the summer before high school, realizing via green Weezer, that if my high school afternoons spent driving were going to be built on power pop, like they ought to have been, it wasn't going to be pretty. Or sound good.
That's not to say there weren't a few great modern/alternative rock singles around that time. One of them was "Get Over It," from OK Go's self-titled debut. Now, a couple years out of high school, OK Go's sophomore album, Oh No, comes as that ever-unfulfilled soundtrack.
It's what Weezer should have done. In fact it kind of sounds like the Weezer album everyone keeps expecting them to come out with-thick, sunny, power pop, with little or no filler-but which, for Weezer, kept turning out to be Maladroit and worse, Make Believe.
While there are no allowances for the lack of intellectual stimulant in the best brands of "fun" power pop, Chicago natives OK Go aren't half as bad, lyrically, as their contemporaries, both five years ago and today.
Even their version of the power-pop signature slow song, "Lately It's So Quiet," is tolerable. It's not dopey or cliché-ridden and not even all that sappy otherwise.
Maybe that's not saying much, then or now. Lest we keep dwelling in the past, Oh No also features engineering from Franz Ferdinand producer Tore Johansson, who is Swedish while the band is from Glasgow, Scotland. The buzz of that name drop actually pans out, as OK Go's guitar work is a nod to the new-wave, art and/or dance-rock stylings of the Glasgow group, perhaps most so on tracks like "It's a Disaster" and more, "A Million Ways."
Otherwise, the stronger tracks on Oh No, like the opener "Invincible" and "No Sign of Life," offer OK Go's hook-driven guitar pop, as only Weezer could have made if they had taken themselves a little less seriously. Sure, they'd be better off in T-shirts and jeans with worn-in knees, but at least OK Go has a recent album of decent power pop behind their goofy, super-slick suits.
Unfortunately, modern rock circa high school was unfulfilling. I mean, really. Creed? Matchbox 20's "introspective" era? Vertical Horizon?? That's hardly the right soundtrack for an afternoon of trash-can bowling with a friend's Datsun pickup.
Personally, I blame Weezer.
I spent all of fifth grade loving "The World Has Turned and Left Me Here," plenty of my junior high discovering Pinkerton and, the summer before high school, realizing via green Weezer, that if my high school afternoons spent driving were going to be built on power pop, like they ought to have been, it wasn't going to be pretty. Or sound good.
That's not to say there weren't a few great modern/alternative rock singles around that time. One of them was "Get Over It," from OK Go's self-titled debut. Now, a couple years out of high school, OK Go's sophomore album, Oh No, comes as that ever-unfulfilled soundtrack.
It's what Weezer should have done. In fact it kind of sounds like the Weezer album everyone keeps expecting them to come out with-thick, sunny, power pop, with little or no filler-but which, for Weezer, kept turning out to be Maladroit and worse, Make Believe.
While there are no allowances for the lack of intellectual stimulant in the best brands of "fun" power pop, Chicago natives OK Go aren't half as bad, lyrically, as their contemporaries, both five years ago and today.
Even their version of the power-pop signature slow song, "Lately It's So Quiet," is tolerable. It's not dopey or cliché-ridden and not even all that sappy otherwise.
Maybe that's not saying much, then or now. Lest we keep dwelling in the past, Oh No also features engineering from Franz Ferdinand producer Tore Johansson, who is Swedish while the band is from Glasgow, Scotland. The buzz of that name drop actually pans out, as OK Go's guitar work is a nod to the new-wave, art and/or dance-rock stylings of the Glasgow group, perhaps most so on tracks like "It's a Disaster" and more, "A Million Ways."
Otherwise, the stronger tracks on Oh No, like the opener "Invincible" and "No Sign of Life," offer OK Go's hook-driven guitar pop, as only Weezer could have made if they had taken themselves a little less seriously. Sure, they'd be better off in T-shirts and jeans with worn-in knees, but at least OK Go has a recent album of decent power pop behind their goofy, super-slick suits.
