Last year, the New York City duo, Ian Axe and Chad Vaccarino, exploded onto the music scene after releasing their hit single, “Say Something,” featuring Christina Aguilera. Axe, Vaccarino and Aguilera performed the song on the most recent season of “The Voice,” and since then the song has notched global top rankings on iTunes, transforming the unknown group into best-selling artists.
The 28-year-olds signed a contract in 2013 under Epic Records. They released a three-song EP that included “Say Something” and their first single, “This is the New Year,” sung by the cast of Glee last year. After two successful songs, A Great Big World debuted their thirteen-song album titled “Is There Anybody Out Here?” on Jan. 21, hoping to achieve positive critical response.
The album opens with the up-tempo track “Rockstar,” questioning, “Is there anybody out there?” with sounds also heard in the following tracks: “Land of Opportunity,” “I Really Want It” and “There Is an Answer,” making the listener question if the duo were writers for Disney channel movies. The lyrics of these songs also bring a lot of positivity and encouragement.
The best part and by far what makes it worth buying are the ballads. “Say Something” is the most powerful slow song among others such as “I Don’t Wanna Love Somebody Else” and “Already Home.” The most admirable thing about the album is the honesty that the duo, who co-wrote all of the songs, shares through the lyrics, especially on those three tracks, singing the words, “I will bend every light in this city/And make sure they are shining on you.”
On the other hand, the most out-of-the-box song, “Shorty Don’t Wait,” contributes to the diversity and quality of the album. The country track has brilliant melodies and, once again, a great message of confidence: “All those people who have hurt you/They ain’t worth your precious time [sic].” It has great potential of becoming a hit single.
There are other times when the album steps out of the “High School Musical” sound; however, the effort did not completely work. For example, even though the seventh track, “Everyone Is Gay,” has an empowering message and a great purpose (to help raise funds for their friends’ website with the same name), it may sound annoying if you are not feeling energetic. The same problem arises with the track “Cheer Up.”
Just like many other debut albums, it has great and not-so-great moments, maybe because of its originality, which can be good or bad depending on the taste of each individual; however, that doesn’t mean it is not worth giving proper attention to the group. They have showed the world that they are talented enough to have a successful career ahead and proved that good music also has simplicity as a characteristic, something hard to see nowadays in this industry.
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