With an earth-shattering kick drum and bass to die for, OK Go launches into “WTF?” and boots off Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, offering the first of several nods to Prince. Unfortunately, the rest of the record never reaches the glorious heights of its first track and lead single.
Chicago’s OK Go is probably still best known for their Grammy-winning video for “Here It Goes Again.” Taken in a single continuous take, the video famously featured the band dancing on treadmills.
For the all the band’s innovation in the form of music videos, that innovation never quite seemed to leak on to Oh No and it’s also sadly lacking on their third and latest album. Of the Blue Colour of the Sky has trouble finding its own legs and each song (even the better ones) hovers over the work of other artists without offering signs of OK Go’s own originality.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some fun moments on the record, of course, as the energy of Damian Kulash Jr. (vocals, guitars, programming, percussion), Tim Nordwind (bass), Andy Ross (guitars, keyboards), and Dan Konopka (drums) is well captured thanks to the Dave Fridmann production.
Still, there’s something about Of the Blue Colour of the Sky that just doesn’t catch.
The record claims to be a concept album based on Augustus James Pleasonton’s weird and obscure work, The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Any thread of a concept seems more related to Purple Rain than it does Pleasonton’s work, however.
With this record, OK Go seems convinced that they need to change styles as often as possible to stay relevant. They approach things as a band full in the knowledge of their popularity in the wishy-washy world of music videos and this winds up giving things a gloss of hesitancy and apprehension.
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Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
the sad thing is that i remember some of the treadmill vid but nothing of the music at all.