What the hell happened to Our Lady Peace? Was I asleep when they abruptly became like any other popular rock group? Unfortunately, over the course of mid-2002 my once-favourite band became no more than another wannabe TRL boy band.
I liked the Canadian alternative group Our Lady Peace for nearly six years of my life. They were my favourite band for quite a while. And so, when the announcement came that they were releasing their fifth CD, Gravity, I obviously couldn't wait.
The day, sometime in June, finally came, and I happily popped the disk into my CD player. I was quickly overcome with disappointment. It was a good CD, but something was missing. It just wasn't OLP material. All the songs were quite . . . well, boring. They were typical rock songs; stuff I could get from any other band. But what bothered me the most were the lyrics. They were mind-numbingly simple! OLP's claim to fame were their widely-interpreted, interesting lyrics! Let's compare lyrics from the second single off of Clumsy (released in 1997) with lyrics from the second single off of Gravity. (released in 2002):
Old OLP: And Sara thinks she's died here once before / She's crazy / A pop-up book of flowers from grade 4 / Are driving her insane - Automatic Flowers
New OLP: I remember feeling low / I remember losing hope / I remember all the feelings and the day they stopped / We are, we are all innocent - Innocent
See? While Old OLP provides us with interesting lyrics, New OLP just churns out another typical rock ballad. We are all innocent, give everyone a chance, blah blah blah. Like I haven't heard that before. Actually, I wouldn't mind an OLP rock ballad, but I'm sure they could've written one that didn't spell everything out for us.
In my growing fury, I blamed everything on the new guitarist, Steve Mazur. Even though that sounds unrational, it turned out to be not very far from the truth.
What had changed to make Our Lady Peace become this way? Well, I believe it all started when they picked producer Bob Rock over their longtime friend and producer of every previous album, Arnold Lanni. They picked Rock because they were worried that they were getting into a rut, and needed to keep from hitting creative mediocrity. Fair enough; the last thing I want is a boring, uncreative OLP. (Sadly, it's what I ended up with.)
OLP has always done their songs with weird, interesting effects in them. Bob Rock refused to let them do this, insisting that all songs they recorded had to be able to be more-or-less reproduced perfectly live. This made Mike Turner very angry, as this was not his style. Rather than back their founding member up and drop Bob Rock, Our Lady Peace unanimously fired Mike. No one knew of this happening until after the CD's release; before, we were only provided with "Mike Turner has left the band due to creative differences," implying it was his choice and not the band's. Our Lady Peace's betrayal of one of their founding members was the biggest step towards making a crappy CD.
The next step towards making a crappy CD: changing your lyrical style. Rock told Raine Maida, the group's lead singer and main song writer, to "write lyrics on a personal level rather than being universally ambiguous." In other words, he was telling Maida, "The average person doesn't get what the hell you're talking about. Dumb it down so we can actually market it." By now, Our Lady Peace realized it was time to dump Bob Rock, right? No. They agreed with Rock, and rewrote all their songs with basic lyrics to appeal to the individual listener. While this is fine for another rock group, this is completely wrong for Our Lady Peace. There is no more individual interpretation, what made OLP great - every song is spelled out for you on such a basic level that a six year-old could comprehend it.
With basic lyrics in hand, they're appealing to every last teeneybopper who wants to look "hardcore." The majority of their fans are no longer alternative music fans; they're preteen girls who think Raine Maida is like, sooo hot. They're breaking into the mainstream market all over the world, and in the process, shunning their home Canada, which actually made them what they are. They've become . . . an arrogant boy band. Just listen to the pathetic love ballad "Somewhere Out There" to see exactly what I mean.
But to add insult to injury, they're touring in Europe with Tressa's nemesis, Avril Lavigne. I guess this just goes to show they like their teeneybopper status.
But I'm willing to accept that everyone is bound to make one bad record or sign one bad contract. If Our Lady Peace can return to their roots on their next CD, I'm willing to forgive them and forget all about the crapfest that is Gravity. So c'mon, OLP - listen to the pleas of your original fans, the ones who will stick by you, and dump those damn teeneyboppers.
To anyone who's just getting into Our Lady Peace, and isn't a teeneybopper, I'd like to end this off by listing the tracks of Gravity and providing next to each an alternative Our Lady Peace song you should listen to, to get a taste of what this band really is.
All For You - Julia (Naveed, 1994) Do You Like It - Hello Oskar (Clumsy, 1997) Somewhere Out There - Annie (Happiness, 1999) Innocent - Everyone's a Junkie (Spiritual Machines, 2000) Made of Steel - Superman's Dead (Clumsy, 1997) Not Enough - Consequence of Laughing (Happiness, 1999) Sell My Soul - Neon Crossing (Naveed, 1994) Sorry - Car Crash (Clumsy, 1997) Bring Back the Sun - Automatic Flowers (Clumsy, 1997) A Story About A Girl - One Man Army (Happiness, 1999)