OneRepublic

Taken from OneRepublic’s third studio album, ‘Native‘, ‘Counting Stars‘ clocks in at just past the 4 minute mark and comes complete with a large number of tempo changes. The formula is much the same as with OneRepublic single success stories of the past, and having hit number 2 in the official UK singles chart ‘Counting Stars‘ has actually become OneRepublic’s biggest commercial success as a single here in the UK, going one further than ‘Apologize‘ which hit number 3 back in 2007.

Whilst the track starts out well and Ryan Tedder’s vocals sound as excellent as ever, the frequent tempo changes of the track just really seem to kill the momentum of the music and the song therefore feels extremely long and meandering. ‘Counting Stars‘ is far from being a bad track, and its huge commercial success says a lot about the band’s ability to mould elements of indie, rock, and pop to produce a sound that is clearly very well received by the music purchasing public. As a piece of music this is most certainly a single that has a lot to appreciate about it, for me there have been better singles from the band in the past, however, and ‘Counting Stars‘ suffers from its sporadic shifts and bursts of tempo.

Definitely give ‘Counting Stars‘ a listen if you’ve liked any of OneRepublic’s music in the past, given the extensive radio airplay and huge commercial success of the single though there’s probably a high chance that you’ve heard and made your mind up about this one already.

As a writer and producer Ryan Tedder has had great success, and even if you don’t know him by name there’s a very strong possibility that you’ve heard his work at some point or another (Leona Lewis’s hugely popular ‘Bleeding Love’ and Beyonce Knowles’ ‘Halo’ are two shining examples of tracks co-written by Tedder). In 2007 the band that Ryan Tedder has fronted since 2002 rose to fame when hip hop rapper/producer Timbaland remixed the single ‘Apologize’ and included it on his 2007 ‘Shock Value’ album; OneRepublic instantly became a household name and ‘Apologize’ was a massive hit all around the world. Following up with ‘Stop and Stare’ OneRepublic was once again able to show great strength as a band, with each additional release the band seemed to lose further popularity however, with singles ‘Say (All I Need)’ and ‘Mercy’ both failing to enter either the US Billboard Hot 100 or the Official UK Top 40. With fifth single ‘Come Home’ on which the band collaborated Sara Bareilles a return to the Billboard Hot 100 was finally in store, and a second album has now followed with the release of ‘Waking Up’ in November 2009.

‘All the Right Moves’ is the first single taken from the ‘Waking Up’ album and was released in the UK in January 2010. Featuring a fantastically catchy chorus, ‘All the Right Moves’ is an absolutely exceptional first single for OneRepublic to have released from the ‘Waking Up’ album, and with this track OneRepublic has once again shown fantastic strength and ability as a band. Ryan Tedder’s vocal lines are as sweetly sung out as ever, and combined with this there is also an absolutely phenomenal guitar sound that can here be heard. ‘All the Right Moves’ is no ‘Apologize’, and the chances are that OneRepublic never will release anything as good as that again, ‘All the Right Moves’ is certainly still a song that begs to be listened to however and once you’ve listened to the track once you’ll no doubt have the song stuck in your head for a long time to come.

‘All the Right Moves’ is undoubtedly repetitive, its simplistic composition and lyrical structure really does work well though, and despite being somewhat limited the track never seems to become tiresome. Ryan Tedder is a supremely talented singer and songwriter, and ‘All the Right Moves’ is a single that showcases this fantastically well; ‘All the Right Moves’ may not be OneRepublic’s best work, it’s still a very solid piece of music though and a track that truly is well worth listening to.

Label: Interscope
Release Date: January 11th 2010

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