Battle of The Bands 12.01.09: Train vs. OneRepublic

Posted by Adam Battagello on 12.01.2009

Two bands who are completely defined by a very slim list of their biggest hits, but how do the new singles hold up?

Greetings one and all and welcome to the first day of the Christmas month, and yet another edition of Battle of the Bands. We shall be taking a bit of a pop-rock oriented focus with the face-off this week, but before we get to that, let's take a look at some of the music news that caught my eye this past week.

Before the Blow


Well it appears that ‘rock' group Fall Out Boy have finally decided to take a hiatus after releasing teen friendly pop for the masses for the better part of the last five years. While I'll admit their music rarely appeals to me, you can't help but feel for a group whose work seems to take the backseat in the attention stakes to one of its members who just so happens to be a media darling.

Perhaps a bit of time apart is what is best for the group, who knows, the media may even get over Pete Wentz and Fall Out Boy can go back to actually being an actual group, and not just the Pete Wentz, Pat Stump, and two other guys.

Despite a lot of protest, here's one piece I actually enjoy from the group…



Anyway, onto the face-off

This Week:

Train- Hey, Soul Sister vs. OneRepublic- All the Right Moves




The singles I have picked this week have been making a steady climb up the billboard charts for some time now, and when you examine the bands that they have come from, you can see how today's comparison fits.

First up we have Train, and their newest release ‘Hey, Soul Sister'. For any casual music listener the San Francisco founded rock band are known largely for their massive 2001 hit ‘Drops of Jupiter', a song so large and unique that, quite frankly, the group have not been able to live up to since. They return from a three-year hiatus in 2009, but can their latest release ever propel them to the lofty heights that the band reached so many years ago?

And on the other side of the battle we have OneRepublic and what is, surprisingly, a career that quite closely mirrors that of their competition today, albeit in more recent times. The group hit it big with the pop rock market in 2007 with the singles ‘Apologize' and ‘Stop and Stare' and to a lesser extent ‘Say', before seemingly dropping off the face of the Earth. Now they're back with the single ‘All The Right Moves', which may very well be the fuel the group needs to continue the movement in their still early career.

So today we have two groups who both toil in the realm of pop rock and are known primarily for a very short list of once popular songs. But which band's new single is the superior one? Let's find out.

Train-Hey, Soul Sister


If you're going to compare Train's latest track to their biggest hit ‘Drops of Jupiter' which, you invariably have to if you want to gain a fair yardstick to measure the band by, the first thing you notice is that this new track doesn't really carry the same feeling of grandeur that the group's biggest hit did.

But hear me out here; this may not necessarily be a bad thing. Let's think about this, the group has been away for three years now, if they were to come back with a song that exploded out of the blocks with the kind of kind of grandness as ‘Drops of Jupiter' well, let's just say you are kind of setting yourself up for a big fall if you once again fail to live up to it.

That being said, ‘Hey, Soul Sister' is the type of song that is beautiful in its simplicity. The track opens with what sounds suspiciously like a ukulele, which is almost always a win in my book. From there on in we get just over a three and a half minute clinic on how exactly you put a soft rock song together, the subtle introduction of the drums, choir like keyboard work. Forget that some will accuse this sort of rock as being sappy and worthless, this track is nothing short of pleasant to listen to.

Lead singer Patrick Monahan is nothing short of sublime as a lyricist, as the beautiful word play in past tracks such as ‘Drops of Jupiter' will instantly show, and on ‘Hey, Soul Sister' he certainly does not disappoint. So many lines throughout the song are beautiful, "your sweet moon beam, the smell of you in every single dream I dream," sure, if it was any cornier it would be growing on a stalk in a field, but still, it's hard to deny that there is something alluring about a track such as this.

Overall, while the mantle of ‘best' single the group has ever released still lies with ‘Drops of Jupiter' what Train now has with ‘Hey, Soul Sister' is a comeback track that is powerful in its simplicity, and should, if the world is fair, have a very good showing on the popular charts in the weeks to come.

Moving on!

OneRepublic- All the Right Moves


A couple of years back when we were constantly being bombarded by OneRepublic's two biggest hits, in particular the track ‘Apologize', I must admit I became quite soured on the band. Their flavor of pop rock didn't really appeal to me, and it felt like quite a struggle to escape from the band.

For the most part, the newest single from the group ‘All the Right Moves', seems to follow the same formula as past hits from OneRepublic. I'm not sure what it is about these guys, but I feel like their music is very…vanilla, and they don't seem to ever push their sound in an attempt to find something new. But, this is the world of pop rock, and if it ain't broke, I guess you shouldn't fix it.

That being said, while it may not push the group's sound in any particularly new direction, ‘All the Right Moves' is an undeniably catchy pop track and in particular the chorus of "All the right friends in all the right places…" you can't really blame yourself if you hear yourself humming along.

As you'd expect from the rest of the track, the music itself also offers nothing really new from OneRepublic, a bit of keyboard, soft guitar work, strained vocals, while it's not original, these guys are playing to the strengths that made them popular, so you can't blame them.

There can only be one!

This week, I'm going to side with Train. I genuinely enjoyed the ‘Hey, Soul Sister', and felt that, as a soft rock song, it was offering a little something different for the market. The song isn't complicated or complex in any way, but as I said earlier, it is perfect for its market in its simplicity. On the other hand I felt as if the OneRepublic track was just sort of…there. Maybe I haven't recovered from the hangover of the group's past popular tracks, but it feels like what they are offering with ‘All The Right Moves' is a really generic variation. I'm sure some will love it, but it's not for me.

Well, that's all from me this week, I'm away for now to catch up with my reading and the Twilight craze.



Until next time, happy battling