Right the Stars
The Only Thing
Reviewed by: Lara Supan
If you binge-watch Grey’s Anatomy or the Lifetime Channel, you’ll love these formulaic, calculated-emotion-extractor songs. If not, steer clear because the amount of saccharine infused into this album will make you want to barf.
Right the Stars is more like “hire the stars to sing our stuff so we can license to TV shows”. This band was constructed by a team of producers, after writing the songs themselves. Under their band page, they have no shows listed and their first contact listing is for licensing. Just hearing the first song on The Only Thing, also titled “The Only Thing” makes you realize that this was created for 20 second clips to be taken out of it. Each song is repetitive to the point of irritation because it was concocted to be snipped apart and sewn back together for whatever television show it peaks the interest of.
Each song has elementary rhymes, laborious synth pads and overly simplified, effect-laden vocals that are mechanically pieced together to elicit an emotional response. More than half the songs on the album have a “hey-ho” type lyric that allows the audience to sing along, and “This is Our Time” even has a clap track for your listening pleasure. The hook in every song is meticulously placed, and then repeated about 30 times so that you’ll definitely have it stuck in your head by the end of the track. “Kiss You Like the End of the World” doesn’t even make logical sense, but who cares about that, right? Their acoustic version of “The Only Thing” tries in vain to create that honest, stripped down, raw version of this song, but only ends up creating more of a sense of soullessness, with schmaltzy cellos and less reverbed (but still as cheesy) vocals.
Don’t buy this album, I’m sure you’ll hear all the songs in little snippets on Honda commercials. As for the idea of creating a band specifically to formulate songs for corporate licensing, at least call yourselves what you really are instead of pretending you’re a legitimate band.
Rating: No Comment
