When a remixed version of
"Apologize"
found its way onto
Timbaland Presents Shock Value
in early 2007,
OneRepublic
were faced with an odd predicament -- the group had a number one
pop
hit without an accompanying album.
Dreaming Out Loud
corrected that problem, delivering a marketable brand of piano-led
pop/rock
that combined the melodicism of
the Fray
with the vocal acrobatics of
Maroon 5
's
Adam Levine
. It's a testament to the band's appeal that
sounds better in its original setting than in the
Timbaland
remix, a fact that owes as much to the musicianship itself as frontman
Ryan Tedder
's own experience as a producer. He was one of the industry's hottest commodities in 2007, co-writing material for
Hilary Duff
,
Ashley Tisdale
, and
Natasha Bedingfield
while producing tracks for
Jennifer Lopez
and
American Idol
runner-up
Blake Lewis
.
Tedder
also saved some material for
's debut, and his band wound up eclipsing many of his past clients in popularity.
kept working with other artists during the following years, penning hit songs like
"Bleeding Love"
"Halo"
in the process.
had its own share of hits, too --
enjoyed a healthy residence on the charts, as did
"Stop and Stare"
-- but the album still sounded derivative, almost as if it were mimicking the popular trends that
helped create with his production gigs.
"All We Are"
was particularly
Fray
-like, with
wailing a radio-ready melody over layers of piano and swelling guitar, while the ghost of
Coldplay
loomed large on other tracks. None of this made
a bad album, particularly, but it did make it an unoriginal one, and
continued to fare better whenever he was writing for groups other than his own. ~ Andrew Leahey