Recently a friend asked me what I thought of Colbie Caillat, and at the mere mention of her name I was flooded with the feelings of girlish pleasure I used to experience every time I listened to her song “Bubbly” on her MySpace page. Colbie Caillat is one of the new generation of MySpace success stories. However, instead of self-releasing her music and raking in tons of money while thumbing her nose at the big record labels, she was, by sheer weight of the number of “friends” she had on MySpace and the number of plays that her MySpace profile received – reportedly near 10 million — signed to Universal Republic (UR) records. And now, the fruits of her association with UR have been released, and her beautifully sweet, romantically girlish sounds can be heard on her debut LP Coco.

Coming from virtual rock royalty – her father is legendary record producer Ken Caillat who produced for Alice Cooper, the Beach Boys, Herbie Hancock, and most notably Fleetwood Mac (Rumours and Mirage) – and spending so much time around music and professional musicians are probably why such a young artist (22) has such a mature and well developed sound. Despite this maturity Caillat imbues her music with feelings of happiness, innocence and a joyous life lived in the sand, sea, and sun. Her particular brand of acoustic folk-pop is fresh faced, guileless, and winsome. Caillat’s music magically transforms me into a giggly girl falling in love for the first time, making me feel young, beautiful, and utterly beatific.

I think in many ways you must be female to understand and truly enjoy Caillat’s simple melodies and lyrics, written, as they are, from a female perspective. So where some may find her music sickly saccharine, childish, and flaccid, I see engaging pureness, teasing silliness, and the appealing nature of simplicity. To me Coco is a triumph of delicate beauty and captivating honesty, over pretentious political metaphor or cryptically expressed romanticism — which some will mistake for artistic merit. While this album will without doubt, have wide general appeal, that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes the masses ARE right.

Coco begins with “Oxygen”, acoustic guitar, piano, simple bass and drum is all that makes up the uncluttered music leaving room for the sincere, unpretentious lyrics. And for me Caillat is all about the lyrics — “I found a boy who had a dream/ Making everyone smile/ He was sunshine/ I fell over my feet/ Like bricks underwater” and “Oh baby if I was your lady/ I would make you happy…/ Oh baby I will be your lady/ I am going crazy for you”. All this sung in Caillat’s perfect golden toned voice that never misses a single note, thought or feeling and is always sprightly, honeyed, and blissfully smooth.