OneRepublic, 'Waking Up'

Release date: November 17, 2009
Record label: Mosley/Interscope
Official Web site: http://www.onerepublic.net/

The buzz: These Colorado pop-rockers conquered the airwaves in 2007, when the Timbaland remix of their song “Apologize” broke the record for most spins on American Top 40 radio in a single week. Meanwhile, their frontman, Ryan Tedder, co-wrote “Bleeding Love,” an even bigger hit for British diva Leona Lewis. Their sophomore album should be huge, right?

The verdict: Well, “Waking Up” certainly wants to be huge—everything, from the band’s Radiohead-aping electronic touches (“Made for You”) to the uneasy rock/hip-hop hybrids (“Everybody Loves Me”) to Tedder’s Bono-wannabe vocals (the U2-biting title track) is cranked up to 11 here. Tedder is a cagey enough songwriter that some of it works: Lead single “All the Right Moves” has a quirky, Keane-meets-*NSYNC quality, and “Missing Persons 1 & 2” proves that the band possesses the capacity to surprise, with a convincingly dark, atmospheric second half. Mostly, though, it’s an album of secondhand sounds and shallow sentiments, striving for the arena-rock grandeur of Coldplay and U2 and landing somewhere closer to the waiting-room balladry of, say, Mike + the Mechanics.

Did you know? Kelly Clarkson publicly criticized Tedder for essentially giving different versions of the same song to her and Beyoncé. Tedder has denied any wrongdoing, but listen to B’s “Halo” alongside Clarkson’s “Already Gone” and it’s pretty clear that Clarkson has a point.