Rob Thomas – Cradlesong – Released June 30, 2009
Review by: Me (Erin)
Alright, so I might be in the minority here simply because people have stereotyped his music, but I’ll be the first to recommend him as a true artist. A guy who writes his own music (as well as music for many of your favorite artists: Willie Nelson, Mick Jagger, Travis Tritt, etc), plays many instruments, produces his own work… I mean, a true artist. You probably know him from his duet, which earned him a grammy, with Santana – “Smooth”.
I got hooked on Matchbox Twenty from the first single “Push” way back when. I eventually bought their first album and have been a fan ever since. Just some great lyrics; stuff that really makes you think. Rob Thomas, the lead singer of the band split off to do his first solo album a few years back and while it was different, I still enjoyed it a good bit. His wordplay describing human emotion in varying circumstances (love, life, death) are thought and emotion provoking.
So, blah blah blah… I like this guy’s music. And my wife does, too…. But I think she likes looking at him more.
Up front I’ll say that I wasn’t expecting much out of this album. Simply because it seems Rob’s first single (
here on mtv's site if you wish) is just not the ‘norm’ for him. But, rhapsody was hosting his CD for listening starting 2 weeks before the release date. What the heck… I’ll listen to it because I’ll probably buy it just to support him as an artist. Well, the first go round I was like “weird”… not weird in a bad way, but weird in a ‘this is different’ way. Every song, it seems, was different than the one before and as a whole, his album was much different than his previous (side note: none of his solo stuff sounds like his music he makes with MBT). I listened to another round while at work and really started digging his new material. I mean, I’ve liked every song sans one (Snowblind).
*I started reviewing each song but quickly realized that I’m not good with adjectives. LOL. Let me just say that out of 16 songs I’ve heard, I like all except maybe 2. That’s incredible nowadays… most albums have 2-3 songs TOPS I can listen to on repeat. However, with this album I can literally sit through my entire workday with this album on repeat and not hit the ‘skip’ button once. Yea, I like it that much.
But, I will list 3 of my favorites:
“Give me the meltdown”
“Fire on the mountain”
“Real World ‘09”
Frankly, this is probably the best music I’ve heard in quite a while. And it came at a perfect time as I was REALLY tiring of the same ol’, same ol’. I give it a 4.5/5. It’s going to be hard for much to top this album, to me, anytime soon.
I recommend you fellas buy it. I’ll try to throw up some scans later. But, even the webrips sound pretty good. Hopefully the engineering is respectable and doesn’t mimic the ‘loud’ feature that all music seems to mimic today.
Here’s a link to Rhapsody’s site, which gives samples of each song. I know I’ll get teased for listening to him, but I don’t care.
http://www.rhapsody.com/player?type=album&id=28523597&remote=undefined&page=undefined&pageregion=undefined&guid=undefined&from=undefined&__pcode=rs
Review on Rollingstone.com:
http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/robthomas/albums/album/28523597/cradlesong
More reviews:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/music/6503426.html
http://www.thetunemusic.com/2009/06/rob-thomas-cradlesong-2009.html
As John Mayer recently tweeted, "no male singer in the world of music today can release a single and have it connect with public as quickly and effortlessly as Rob Thomas."
