Josh Groban looks adorable and innocent, but after listening to his new album, Awake, you'll want to run away. Far away. Awake is a random collection of overly grandiose and dramatic songs that will only please serious fans of operatic vocal pop. Granted, Groban is an incredibly skilled vocalist, but his talent would be better served in musical theatre, which he studied until he was offered a recording contract.
Awake is most disappointing lyrically. Five of the 13 tracks are not in English, which is good news for monolingual fans. Those who do know Spanish, Italian and English have to suffer through all of the bland, clichAc sentiments of love.
Every song tries to blossom into a powerful ballad, but even though there is depth and passion in Groban's voice, the amazingly shallow lyrics prevent the tracks from being anything other than ridiculous. This is easy to see with corny song titles like ""You Are Loved (Don't Give Up)."" In ""So She Dances,"" lines such as ""She moves with the music / The song is her lover / The melody's making her cry"" lack rhythmic flow and originality.
Despite rotten lyrics, Awake is solid in its blend of music and vocals. Even when larger orchestras provide the music, Groban is never overpowered or overpowering. The mixture is great, but is still not enough to save this album.
Although well recorded, every track is so incredibly intense that it becomes sickening part way through. The musical pattern of building up to a dramatic climax and fading out again is enough to get on anyone's nerves when repeated so many times in a row.
Josh Groban is definitely talented, but his style doesn't seem to be meant for recording a haphazard collection of songs just for the sake of releasing an album. It's easy to tell that he throws his soul into his rich, smooth voice. If he had stuck to musical theatre, this would have worked to his advantage and he would easily be able to pull an audience into any storyline. However, there is no storyline in Awake, and the listener is only tossed back and forth between empty love songs for nearly an hour. If Groban is attempting to cross over into the world of pop, he will have to diversify his range and focus on creating albums in which each track contributes to the disc as a whole, instead of throwing together a hodgepodge of love songs.
Overall, there is simply not enough variety in Awake to make listening for more than a few tracks worthwhile. It's a shame that Groban's abilities have been wasted on meaningless material when he would have more success in a different area of music or if he was given better ideas to work with. True fans will be satisfied with the album and stand behind Josh, but for everyone else, avoiding the pain and nausea Awake brings is a good move.
