Bubbly
This is a HIT!
Go to the iTunes Store. TODAY! And in the center of the homepage, click to download the free single of the week, "Bubbly", by Colbie Caillat.
This is lazy and infectious. Akin to Jack Johnson, but catchier.
I have no idea what caused this album, "Coco", to go to number one on the iTunes chart upon release. I’m sure there’s a story. But it’s so easy to be out of the loop these days. People are proud of being out of it. Otherwise, they’d be buried by the avalanche of hype. But when something reaches you, through whatever means possible, and you embrace it, you tell everybody you know.
"Bubbly" is akin to a track from the seventies. When James Taylor and Carole King ruled. This is Norah Jones if Norah lived in California and wrote her own material from the get-go. Listening to "Bubbly" just makes you feel good.
As for the rest of the tracks on her MySpace page, who decided the drum machines which seemed so hip in the eighties are still relevant today? They make "The Little Things" and "Feelings Show" almost unlistenable to me. But "Realize" is sans fake drums, and it’s pretty good and listenable.
Listenable… Don’t put your judgment hat on here. Don’t debate whether Colbie is for the ages, just imagine driving up PCH with the top down, letting the music wash over you. That’s what this sound is about. For that respite when you’re carefree, before school goes back into session.
Better yet, scroll down Colbie’s MySpace page to the fourth video. "Droplets", played live acoustically with her partner Jason Reeves last December 20th. There’s no auto-tune. No name producer or mixer. Just honesty.
And I believe there’s a place for honesty. That the public clamors for honesty. Colbie works because she’s not an airbrushed Paris or Lindsay, but the girl you went to school with. Who’s got a life outside of paparazziville.
This isn’t so far removed from the sixties. When everybody picked up a guitar and we sat around the living room singing Beatle songs.
This is Jewel without the cuteness.
Open your heart.
Or, if it’s closed, that’s your prerogative.
You might want to smash the radio when "Bubbly" is overplayed this summer. But for now, it truly is a breath of fresh air. Fresh, Malibu ocean air.
And yes, her dad is Ken Caillat. And there’s a story here. But I don’t believe the MySpace tale. Because when a bigwig called me about signing her months ago only one track had been played on her page and there were no Google hits. But however the manipulation was executed, it worked. Fully birthed we’ve got someone women can resonate with, who they don’t have contempt for, who they believe might grow and have something to say in the future.
And boys too. Check the proposal video on the MySpace page.
And, the MySpace page is riddled with hype and sales tools. And I normally lament these things. But in this case, the music is truly doing the selling. My definition of a hit is something that is ear-pleasing, that you want to hear more than once, that puts you in a trance, and for one small moment makes you forget how truly hard life is and what a bullshit world we live in. "Bubbly" qualifies.
