Remember when...

Jonny Craig- "A Dream Is A Question You Don't Know How To Answer"
Release Date: August 18, 2009

I'm going to begin by saying that I've got serious bro-love for Jonny Craig. I first heard of the guy when he began his run with post-hardcore/screamo band "Dance Gavin Dance" and have subsequently followed him to his new band "Emarosa". I appreciate the music of any band he's in just because I believe he has one of the greatest voices I've ever heard from anyone.

Needless to say, I've been waiting with great, great anticipation for this album since it was first announced months prior. Jonny stated he was recording a solo-album as a side-project with Rise Records as his label, but that's about all we heard until four weeks ago. He's shown his voice can be very versatile, doing guest vocals for an assortment of bands of many different colors and flavors. Fans of Emarosa and old Dance Gavin Dance alike were more than ready for a solo effort from Jonny.

The album is entitled A Dream Is A Question You Don't Know How To Answer. It contains ten tracks and has a run time of 33 minutes. Songs focus largely on Jonny's vocals and an acoustic guitar, though each song has a variety of instruments to keep the music interesting.

The disc starts with the song "So Many of Us Hide Our Black Hearts", an unfortunate negative for the tracks yet to come. The sound is rough, Jonny's vocals are off, and it comes off as unfitting for a Jonny Craig track. This poor start is identically recreated with another "filler" song on track eight, which runs two minutes and just doesn't seem like something Jonny Craig would do.

Suffer past the minute-long intro track to hear "Istillfeelher Part III", a song that shows Jonny's true style. Jonny's smooth vocals are combined with an equally soothing melody, accentuating Jonny's powerful voice and telling a story of an old lover or dear one. The ride doesn't stop with the next track, "What I Would Give To Be An Australian", and continues all the way to track five, "7 AM, 2 Bottles, and the Wrong Road". Jonny doesn't throw any curveballs with these songs: admittedly, some tracks sound similar, but there's plenty of differences from track to track to keep you interested and excited for many playthroughs.

Track six is where I was blown away. "The Garbage Pail Kid Gang Bang", as strange and disturbing of a title as it is, is an excellent track. Jonny's vocals are catchy and slick, the guitar is funky, and Jonny repeats "Before you open your mouth, let me make it clear: I can't be brought down while I stand so high...where's the lesson in this?". It's an amazingly constructed song, and one that's going to be put on repeat for some time to come.

Track seven and nine are much like two through five: great music, though nothing that'll give a blind man sight. The album closes with the song "Children of Divorce", one of the greatest pieces I've ever had the pleasure to listen to. Jonny is much more serious and distraught, and the song seems like something he really feels emotionally attached to. It's a song of a couple who became a pair too fast, only to realize they didn't really love eachother after they create a child. Jonny sings, "Sadly enough, this song's not to hurt you, just to show the world that I'm free." It's beautiful, and the song alone is completely worth the $12.00 pricetag.

Remember when...

Jason Mraz - "We Sing.  We Dance.  We Steal Things."
Release Date: May 13, 2008

The funny thing about music these days is that it seems one hit single is all that's needed to launch a successful career in the industry. Any well-known artist will make a million dollars off of a track with their name on it, and because of this I find I'm extremely critical of any song I hear ten times in one hour on the radio. When I first heard Jason Mraz' single "I'm Yours" I liked it, but I ignored his album because I felt it would be the only song worth listening to. It's a trick I've seen all too much with modern music: release one song the public will love, sell millions of mediocre CDs for twelve bucks each.

Jason Mraz classifies himself as an MC, mainly for his ability to spit out tongue-twisting lyrics rapid fire. It's one of his claims to fame, and it's very prevalent on his 2001 album Waiting For My Rocket To Come. I really don't care for it. It's unique but lacks any positive musical quality and I'd always find myself skipping tracks where the focus is set on his word flow. When the time came to take a listen to We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. I was very unenthusiastic.

My initial negativity may have something to do with it, but I was blown away by the album. What I expected was overdone love ballads with terrible lyrics and Mraz' "boop-boppidy-boop" beat boxing solos. While we still need to put up with the beeps and the boppidies, the album focuses on lively melodies, strong vocals, positive messages, and a style I've seen come from nobody but Mraz himself.

The album begins with "Make It Mine", an extremely funky track that really sets things off right. You'll hear a soft guitar playing in the background, but instrumentally the focus is on a few trumpets present at different parts of the track. Mraz doesn't do anything major lyrically or vocally in the verses and bridges of the song, but redeems himself in the chorus, when he sings "I don't want to wake before the dream is over...I'll make it all mine." This lyric prepares the listener for the rest of the album, which for the most part stays extremely positive.

The album rolls on with "I'm Yours", the track that's likely responsible for most of the record's sales. It's a slow love song, and Mraz accentuates his boopidy-boppidies multiple times (this time with a doodja-doo-doodja spin), but it's not bad. The beat is smooth and each verse flows pretty nicely. Besides, it could be worse: what if it was a love song featuring a female vocalist with a groany voice and sappy "other people don't understand" lyrics? What if it was like the next track, "Lucky"?

The song has absolutely no progression and shows that Mraz still isn't perfect. In fact, he uses the exact same formula in the songs "If It Kills Me" and "A Beautiful Mess". The song "The Dynamo Of Volition" shows he's still wants to show the world he likes to rap, but unfortunately it adds another song to my "skip" list.

Thankfully, these are the only negatives on the album. Mraz boasts his great song writing in songs like "Love for a Child" and "Live High". Lyrics like, "When you're young, it's okay to be easily ignored...I'd like to believe it was all about love for a child," remind me that he can still write a great song. Even songs like "Coyotes" and "Butterfly", which don't have any lyrics that really stand out, feature that Mraz-style funk that make the songs exciting and enjoyable.

The song that stands out most to me after multiple listens is "Details In The Fabric" featuring James Morrison. It's the slowest song on the album, but amazingly positive and very high-quality musically. Mraz and Morrison both sing, "Hold your own, know your name, and go your own way...if your shocked it's just the fault of faulty manufacturing."

We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. is a great record. It's a bit disappointing that I was only able to enjoy eight of the twelve tracks, but eight tracks is enough to justify twelve dollars. Mraz shows that he can pull off anything from funky/smooth trumpet rock to slow acoustics with powerful lyrics, and the variety of the album is something not seen in most records today.

New Release - Craig Owens "With Love" EP

Craig Owens. Maybe you've heard of him?  He's the lead singer for the bands Chiodos and Cinematic Sunrise along with being one of three vocalists for super group Isles & Glaciers, and now he has this, a solo project. If they haven't already, someone needs to tell the guy to calm down. Don't get me wrong, Cinematic Sunrise is alright and I can tolerate him on Isles & Glaciers, but his latest solo release entitled With Love makes me wonder if he's running out.

The record begins with "Cardigans and Swing Sets", and before Craig finishes the first line my disappointment begins. An extremely soft piano is playing as Craig sings, "And I feel so alone," in some sort of whisper/cry combination. I tell myself that it's just one line with some cheesy gimmick, but Craig does the entire song like that. And maybe that's what they wanted - maybe he's supposed to sound like he's about to cry, because that's just how lonely Craig Owens is. I'm not buying it, the lyrics are nothing for him to slit his wrists over.

I view the lyrics present in the track "Products of Poverty" as sarcasm, because Craig talks about having everyone hate him, doing coke off of study material, and not believing in himself. He's got thousands of fans who would love to be friends with him; the world isn't out to get him as he makes it seem in the song. Just seems like three minutes of sob to me. It doesn't help that guest vocalist Stephen Christian totally outdoes Craig. Craig's voice is cracky and off-tune, but Christian sounds smooth and peaceful and very nice.

The fourth track, entitled "A Poem by Adam Wolfson", is extremely laughable, not for it's material but for being pathetic and unfunny. I wasn't so critical of the album until this track, but when I heard Craig trying to get a cheap laugh out of cussing I just lost all hope. If you want to have fun and joke around, that's fine, but don't try to pass this off as a seven track EP and then fill it up with crap like this. Anybody who actually purchased this CD had to waste 99 cents for something so immature and that angers me.

The song "Big Apple Big Heart" is notable for having one lyric that I felt was pretty good. The song is obviously about someone leaving his current life to live in New York and try to make it as a musician. Craig sings, "I turn to my left, I see my mother crying/She says to me, 'Why couldn't you have been a doctor or a lawyer?'" which I do feel is a good example of human emotion. I can appreciate that, it's just a shame the rest of the song is extremely generic, boring acoustic music.

The rest of the tracks that I didn't mention are just boring, poorly produced acoustic love songs. Nothing more to them than that. In "My Love", Craig repeats the lyric "Cause you can change/Oh, if you want, you can change/If you want/You can change/Oh, if you want, you can always change" about three times, and that's just grand.

I know this review and my thoughts on the album probably seem extremely unprofessional, and I should probably apologize for that, but I honestly believe this is the worst album I've listened to all year. Craig's lyrics are extremely terrible, and it doesn't help that for most of the album he's only accompanied by an acoustic guitar. No track is worth more than one listen. Offensive as it may be, I hope this EP's sales tank. Something needs to show Craig four projects are four projects too many.