Episode 2: Colbie Caillat - 'Coco'

This has nothing to do with the Caillat album covered here but I added it here for being one of the more notable bad songs I've heard recently

The term "alternative music" basically has no meaning at this point, especially since in the 1990s the "alternative" became the mainstream. The term is as meaningless in music circles as "indie" and "hipster." So we'll find out that there are a lot of things considered "alternative" while going on this journey through the Top Alternative Albums chart. I mentioned this in last week's column, but we'll see everything from folk and indie rock acts to punk and even straight-up metal (according to these charts Metallica is classified as "alternative," which, sure). 

This week's topic is something that doesn't necessarily stand out as an especially "alternative" record. It really stands out compared to the albums around it. The Smashing Pumpkins? Yeah, that's as alternative as it gets. KoRn and Sum 41? Sure, pop punk and nu metal are definitely in this category. But Colbie Caillat? The pop singer with multiple top 20 hits? Seems a bit of a stretch. Then you remember that "adult alternative" is a thing that collects super-mainstream pop acts like Leona Lewis and Adele along with the more "traditionally" alternative acts like Pearl Jam and Dave Matthews Band. Caillat's later albums won't be put under this umbrella (her sophomore album Breakthrough was No. 1 on the Billboard 200 but absent from this chart), but she was classified as alternative for Coco, so let's take a look.

Colbie Caillat - Coco (Universal Republic, 2007)

Genres: folk pop, adult alternative

Producer(s): Mikal Blue, Ken Caillat, Colbie Caillat, Jason Reeves

Metacritic Score: N/A

RYM Rating: 2.90/5 (227 ratings, album ranked 2/5 in artist's catalog)

Sputnik Rating: 3.1/5 (42 ratings, album ranked 2/4 in artist's catalog - site doesn't have any ratings for her 5th album)

Weeks at #1: Six (Week of August 4, 20-7, Weeks of December 15, 2007-January 12, 2008)

Other Accomplishments: certified 2x Platinum by RIAA

2007 was a perfect time to be a part of the adult alternative scene. It's the year that Leona Lewis' "Bleeding Love" would reach No. 1. Artists like Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, Sara Bareilles, The Fray and OneRepublic were really starting to break out. Colbie Caillat was just one of the many, many soft pop artists that captured the nation's attention at the time. And what created such an environment for the rise of light and fluffy folk-pop? Myspace.

Myspace's peak seems like a million years ago in internet terms. Facebook and Twitter have become so dominant in recent years that it's easy to forget how big the social media service was. Myspace was especially big for unsigned artists. Artists could post songs on their pages that would automatically play whenever you visited their page. Fans could become "friends" with them, share their favorite songs on their own pages and leave comments saying how much they loved certain artists (I'm pretty sure I had Muse and Radiohead in my top 8 friends because I was a really cool 13 year-old). Unsigned artists used this to build connections with fans that felt more personal than bigger pop artists signed by major labels.

Caillat was one of those artists that became huge on Myspace, and eventually she turned that into a major record deal and pop stardom. Of course, there's a chance she could've gotten there even without Myspace. Her father was an engineer who worked on albums by Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and was the lead producer on Fleetwood Mac's best albums. She also has a really nice voice that's perfect for the brand of sunshiney pop that she went for. Caillat had enough connection and talent that she probably would've been noticed eventually, but building her brand on Myspace really helped things.

Coco is nice and breezy, perfect for relaxing in a coffee shop or on the beach. It makes sense that the music caught on social media. If somebody chose one of her songs as their "Myspace song," it communicates that the personality of the person is bright, happy, bubbly. A lot of social media activity is posturing about how you're a normal, stable person (unless you're on Twitter, in which case it's the opposite), so this is really good mood music.

Most of the album features very short verses to get to the incredible earworm hooks. I've heard "Bubbly" probably hundreds of times over the past decade, but I don't think I could sing the main melody even after listening to it multiple times this week. That chorus though? You only need to hear it once before it's in your head forever. Those choruses are what make this album, even if there's not much else around them.

That makes it a hard album to judge at times for me. It's all... fine. The lyrics aren't particularly deep, but it's a soft acoustic pop album about young love and having fun, so that's not the point. The breeziness of Coco is a gift and a curse. It allows you to not really dwell on the lyrics too much and enjoy the vibe. That's a good thing because once you dive into the lyrics then you start realizing that the innocent-seeming "Bubbly" you put as your Myspace song when you were 15 is definitely about makin' babies.

But that breeziness leads to that forgetfulness I was talking about earlier. A lot of it is in one ear and out the other, aside from those big hooks. Once again, that can be more or less the point. It's about the vibe at the time. You don't need a ton of depth when you're waiting for a coffee at Starbucks or you're driving. You just need something light, but when the album's highest praise is "pretty good background music," it's hard to fully get on board with it.

The Myspace era would be over shortly after Coco, and Caillat's career more or less went with it. Her 2009 follow-up Breakthrough would do well initially, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and being certified Gold before losing steam. She had more hits. "Fallin' for You," "Brighter Than the Sun" and "Try" are all super-recognizable tracks even if I wasn't aware they were Caillat songs. But like her peers Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson, she couldn't maintain that huge level of success from her breakout. You can tell after her debut that she was already trying to keep up with the shifting pop landscape to mixed success.

Breakthrough's sound was overall more expansive than Coco, but the songwriting was weaker. All of You saw her mostly going back to basics and features perhaps her two best singles in "Brighter Than the Sun" and "I Do," but it's overall a mixed bag that also features a laughable collaboration with legendary rapper Common. On Gypsy Heart, Caillait goes full-on mainstream pop working with huge producers like Babyface Edmonds and Max Martin. The sound.... doesn't suit her, and the lyrics there are actively bad instead of forgettable. Her last album The Malibu Sessions is a step back in the right direction, but at this point she's off a major label and most people seemed to have taken a pass on her music.

Most of the mainstream successes of Caillait's era of adult alternative seem to have taken the same route. When was the last time you heard a new song by The Fray or The Script on the radio? Probably five years at the least. It's not an impossible genre to thrive in. Adele, Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran all transitioned from singer-songwriter beginnings to pop superstardom, but those transitions were nearly seamless. Caillat's efforts to cross over a bit felt awkward and there's a low margin for error when trying to cross over more into the mainstream. It's a bit of a shame. A lot of Caillait's music doesn't really sound dated even if the landscape has changed, and the singles are all still really strong. But in a bloated category like "acoustic, poppy singer-songwriter" it's hard to stay fresh or relevant.

Rating: 6/10

Chris' Official Colbie Caillat Ranking:
1. Coco (2007)
2. All of You (2011)
3. Breakthrough (2009)
4. The Malibu Sessions (2016)
5. Gypsy Heart (2014)

Next Week: Sum 41 aren't the ones you thought you knew back in high school on Underclass Hero