Easier Life
Is this a hit record?
I told myself I was swearing off Howard Stern, that I was going to listen to music in the car. And pushing the buttons, I stumbled on this on SiriusXM’s Coffee House.
It’s got the lolling groove of a Jack Johnson song, the sing-songiness of Colbie Caillat’s big hit and the jaunty irreverence of Jason Mraz’s "I’m Yours". Which means it’s completely derivative, but…
I turned it off halfway through, I was at my destination, home. But as I was walking up the sidewalk, I found myself singing this song I’d only heard a minute of. Repeatability, singability, aren’t those the keys to hits?
I immediately fired up Safari and started searching. Needing to hear this track again. But it wasn’t easy to find. The act’s name is Loyola, meaning the results end up being every parochial school in America. But, I ultimately found the album on Amazon.
With no comments.
And more Googling put me on Loyola’s MySpace page. Where I found the song only had 195 plays. In other words, it was not yet a smash.
The label was an independent. The CD is out of stock. But somehow someone got to SiriusXM. If that someone was bigger, let’s say Monte at Universal Republic, could "Easier Life" be an utter smash?
I’d say the odds are really good.
This completely derivative track is better than anything Jimmy Buffett’s written in decades. And there’s a skill in nailing the essence of what’s come before, isn’t that Diane Warren’s skill?
It’s summer. This is a gin & tonic/pina colada song. Something to play as you’re sipping under the umbrella, hanging out on the dock, watching the sun set.
Muscle means everything when it comes to hits today. And, ironically, most of the Top Forty beat-driven stuff lives in a ghetto, it never penetrates the mainstream (except in the reporting of the mainstream media, which doesn’t like to believe it’s on its last legs). Then you get something different, like the aforementioned Mraz song, and it ends up selling for a year, being almost ubiquitous, because it’s easily singable, unlike anything that came before.
"Easier Life" is similar to what came before. I wish the lyrics were a bit better. But that’s an amazing hook, which so many people can resonate with.
Listen here:
Easier LifeAnd notice how MySpace inserts an ad after the track, which can only be killed by killing the whole damn page. MySpace is killing itself.
