Here's my Bright Idea (Bright Idea - Orson)

Member Name: rleigh

Product:	Bright Idea - Orson
Date:	18/10/06 (558 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: One stand out track

Disadvantages: Only one track that you'll want to listen to too many times

After falling in love with 'No Tomorrow', I was expecting Orson's 'Bright Idea' to be one of the albums of the year. With plenty of great breakthrough albums released this year such as The Automatic's 'Not Accepted Anywhere', The Fratellis 'Costello Music', and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly's 'The Chronicles of a Bohemian Teenager', the question that needs to be asked is - was Orson's 'Bright Idea' one of them? Well, if you've listened to the album before then you've probably already made up your mind about that, however here is what I thought of the album.

The first track here is 'Bright Idea'. This is an extremely soulful, laid back track with a chilled out vibe about it, however there's nothing really particularly interesting which takes place over the course of the 4 minutes that the track runs for. It's an inoffensive pop song and it's not particularly bad as such, there's just nothing that excites. You spend the entire duration of this track wondering just when it's going to get going but sadly enough it just doesn't happen and leaves you feeling a bit cheated really. This is a poor track to start the album with as it doesn't leave you wanting to listen to the rest of the album, in fact it'll probably have you reaching for the 'stop' button.

The second track on the album is the track that the band are most renowned for; 'No Tomorrow' which is a strong track that will get stuck in your head and have you humming along for weeks. There is an extremely strong chorus here and an awesome back beat throughout the track so it is no surprise that this one went straight to number one - it is a finely sculpted pop track that you wont be forgetting in a hurry. Everything about this track fits together perfectly and is probably my favourite track on the album, after all it is really this track alone that encouraged me to check out the album in the first place. This one was a clever marketing move and an extremely well chosen first single to get people interested in the band.

Next up; 'Happiness'. This one plods along without really leaving any sort of impact, with a chorus that seemingly does not go with the flow of the music whatsoever. The track opens well with a strong guitar riff which leads you to believe that this is going to be another strong track from the band, however it soon develops that this is not the case at all. This is another mid-tempo pop song from the band with no real sense of urgency. I feel that the band have once again fallen flat on their faces with this one, after one bad track and one great one you really felt that the album could have gone either way, unfortunately from here on in most of the album goes down the boring route rather than having more feel good tracks in the vain of 'No Tomorrow'.

From here we move onto 'Already Over' and are things looking up from here? Well, in a word; no. The snooze factor of the band continues and for me their credibility is 'Already Over'. I just can't find any positives to take from this track, I'm not quite sure what they're trying to do here but for me it just doesn't work and things just seem to have gone from bad to worse.

So we've reached the mid-point in the album and so far it seems like apart from the obvious, there's nothing to really write home about apart from the obvious. 'Downtown' doesn't change this as it is another fairly bland track, predominantly keeping to the script and offering us another watered down monotonous pop song. Although there are elements of promise in this track and at certain points the guitars actually sound quite fresh, the overall feel of the song and poor vocals really do ruin it for me.

What's this, a remotely good song again? Yes, with 'Tryin' To Help' the band seem to have found themselves again and although not as good as 'No Tomorrow', this one makes a welcome change from what we have been treated to so far. The band take a step in the direction of Indie Rock here rather than the straight up pop music that his been leading up to it and for the most part they pull it off fairly well. For the first half of this song you'll be pleased that the band have altered their sound slightly and are moving away from the formulaic tripe that has filled the album so far apart from 'No Tomorrow', however once the initial shock factor of the change in sound wears off you'll probably find this track fairly irritating as although more Indie Rock than Pop, it's still rather bland.

So next up is 'So Ahead Of Me', another Indie flavoured track. I don't really understand what's with the sudden change in formula, it's almost as if they're trying to appeal to everyone, but have done so by giving their album different sections - first the pop songs and then the Indie tracks to appeal to that end of the market. I think they'd have probably been better off spreading these tracks out a bit as it's a really strange format to have the two most Indie orientated songs follow on from one another. If they'd spread them out a bit then it would have broken the album up a bit and possibly made the album a bit more listenable, however as it is it just doesn't feel right. Towards the end of this track there are some strong drum beats and guitar riffs that come through, and on another album this probably would have sounded good, however it's just so out of character for this band that it really just feels a bit out of place. Strategically placed to wake listeners up for the last four tracks maybe?

When next track 'Last Night' kicks off you'd have to be tone-deaf not to realise that the guitars and drums just don't fit together. As was the case in 'Happiness', there seems to be a real mismatch here meaning that the song is actually quite difficult to listen to as with two completely different sounds going on at the same time it just sounds like a complete mess. The vocals over the top aren't particularly strong and are definitely not enough to salvage any of the bands dignity here. An extremely weak offering from the band that doesn't sound right at all. I have no idea why this one wasn't scrapped when they were recording this album but then again, judging by the quality of the vast majority of the tracks included on this album it doesn't seem like there was a lot of choice.

Pop ballad 'Look Around' has such a slow pace that you're constantly waiting for it to stop. Sadly this doesn't happen for gone 5 minutes and although a good track to play to a young child that can't sleep, you're not going to find many other reasons to play this one. Such a boring song is this one - don't get me wrong, I'm not overly critical of all ballads, just poorly written and diabolically lacklustre ones. Even as a fan of Coldplay I found this one tiresome.

So with penultimate track 'Save The World' what more can I possibly say about the band that I haven't said already? Well on first listen the answer is very little as there's nothing here that really excites, however on inspection of the lyrics you'll notice that this track does have some promise. This one would have been great on the soundtrack of 'My Super Ex-Girlfriend' had it actually been any good, it is a song about a super hero girlfriend that's never there are she's too busy saving the world. Although the lyrics here are good, it really is only the lyrics that will impress as the song itself is yet another dull pop offering which although is entirely inoffensive, does not make for good listening.

The band choose to end the album with 'The Okay Song', a track that lives up to expectations and provides the listener with an OK song. I'm not quite sure why you'd want to openly admit to ending your album with an 'Okay Song', but there you go - maybe Orson see it as quite an achievement writing a song of this standard, given their sub-standard efforts throughout much of the album. Bands tend to end their albums on a high, leaving you wanting more and praying that they come back with another album, however 'The Okay Song' seems to serve the purpose of letting you rest assured that Orson won't be back as it seems that 'No Tomorrow' was somewhat of a fluke and other than that they are at best, 'Okay'.

I doubt that Orson will be returning at any point in the future with a follow up to 'Bright Idea'. This album has to be one of the biggest disappointments of the year with an album that had such great promise jam packed full of fillers. Nothing this album has to offer ever quite lives up to the hype of the amazing 'No Tomorrow', in fact if this track wasn't on there then I don't think Orson would have enjoyed anywhere near the success that they have done if any at all. I know that most people checked out the bands debut on the basis of the excellent 'No Tomorrow' so I somehow doubt I am the only one that has been left disappointed by what Orson had to offer. Orson front man Jason Pebworth lacks star quality as with his poor voice and lack of charisma, I feel he is what lets this album down and makes it so hard to listen to. He is clearly not the best of singers, and although this isn't always a huge problem if you have talented musicians and strong backing vocals behind you that can carry you, the musicianship here although occasionally showing signs of promise is generally a let down and for the most part Jason Pebworth goes it alone in the vocals department. If they could have written an album of 'No Tomorrow's then this would have been one of the best albums in a long time, however this is obviously easier said than done. All the 'would have been' and 'could have been' in the world can't change the fact that as a whole, the 'Bright Idea' would have been not to have released this album.

Released: 29th May 2006
Label: Mercury

Summary: Could have been great, but turned out to be a complete let down