Album A Day: Collective Soul – Afterwords

It’s a little strange that this is the only Collective Soul album I have, apart from their greatest hits album. Out of all of their albums and their hit-laden career, their most recent record spawned a tiny hit in “Hollywood” and strays away from the post-grunge rock that made Collective Soul ubiquitous in the mid 90s.

Collective Soul’s biggest problem in their career has been the fact that they craft such catchy, radio friendly tunes that consistently turn into mild hits, all while doing so under a strange amount of anonymity. When I first started listening to the band years ago, there were dozens of moments where I’d listen to a song and realize “Holy crap! They do this song?!?!” Afterwords carries on that tradition of quietly spinning out catchy tracks that are fun in the moment, but easily forgotten shortly thereafter. Ed Roland is a fairly adept songwriter, and to his credit, these songs are leaps and bounds above the Buzz Ballads fodder of the band’s early catalog. But vocally Roland is mediocre, and his cottony baritone does little to make these tracks memorable once the final chords have faded out. The rest of the band doesn’t fare much better, and while Afterwords is a soothing, comfortable listen for its 40 minute duration, few tracks stick around in the brain past that point.

But in the band’s defense, musicians consistently say that one of the hardest things to do when writing a song is coming up with a melody that can sustain a 3-4 minute pop song while simultaneously being pleasing to the ear and quasi-intelligent. Collective Soul does that with both arms tied behind their back. The melodies are prominent, fun, and far from the loud, dumb power chords that their contemporaries rely on. Collective Soul may forever be a shadowy silhouette in the minds of music fans, but so long as they churn out simple charms like Afterwords, they’ll be able to survive thus as long as they like.

Collective Soul – Hollywood [iTunes] (YSI)

==TJ==

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