Coco - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
Even without MySpace, singer/songwriter Colbie Caillat is sure to have found an audience, but her oft-accessed page accelerated the process, mostly on the strength of the effervescent "Bubbly." On her first full-length album, the California native conjures up clear skies and warm breezes. Not that the lyrics revolve around her stomping grounds of Malibu and Ventura County, but her mellow melodies sound like products of those places (co-writer Jason Reeves' ukulele playing reinforces the beach music impression). Instead, Caillat sings about love in all its guises, as on "Capri," a tribute to a mother-to-be. The daughter of audio engineer Ken Caillat (Fleetwood Mac's Rumours), who provides production assistance, Colbie combines acoustic pop, light jazz, and blue-eyed soul on Coco. Despite her young age--22 at the time of its release--the record seems likely to attract an older audience, although her sunny singing manages to sound centered and spirited at the same time. Coco doesn't offer anything startlingly new, but its relaxing vibe is hard to resist. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Album Description
Singer/songwriter Colbie Caillat is one of the most celebrated artists to emerge from the growing talent pool of digitally-savvy self-launched artists, whose rise to prominence as the #1 unsigned artist on the popular myspace site has been largely due to her refreshing sense of understatement.

With no marketing push and only the power of the music behind her, Caillat became a sensation on the social networking site. Rolling Stone highlighted her as one of the top female artists on myspace. Ultimately, her number of friends swelled to more than 100,000. Her profile has been visited over 3 million times, and she has more than l0 million plays. She's currently averaging 50,000 + a day.

The songs on Caillat's debut album COCO mirror the Malibu-born Caillat's low-key, refreshing style. Armed with her acoustic guitar and her dusky vocals, she evokes the same gentle, yet spirited style of her musical influences John Mayer, Bob Marley, Lauryn Hill and The Weepies. The laid-back tempo of Hawaii, where she spent twice annual family vacations, is echoed in the music.

"She's the real thing," stated Monte Lipman, President of Universal Republic Records. "From her unique songwriting skills to her powerful but understated presence, Colbie has connected to millions of music lovers simply through the power of her music.

Album Description
UK pressing of the 2007 debut album by the 22 year-old Californian singer/songwriter features one bonus track: 'Dreams Collide'. Until she was signed by Jack Johnson, Caillat was he number one unsigned artist on Myspace for four successive months, garnering an almost unbelievable 10 million plays. From the sunny, upbeat promise of songs such as 'Bubbly' and 'Oxygen' to the gentle, semi-R&B groove of 'The Little Things' and the lilting reggae of 'Tied Down', Coco is one of those classic albums that simply makes you feel glad to be alive. Island.

Album Details
A Great Song, Says Colbie Caillat, Should Lift Your Heart, Warm the Soul and Make You Feel Good. Taking her Own Sound Advice, "Coco", the Debut Album by the 22 Year-old Californian Singer-songwriter is Simply Crammed Full of Them.

Customer Reviews: Read 183 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Refreshing and consistently good July 27, 2007
40 out of 43 found this review helpful

I listened to the free single of the week, Bubbly I received through iTunes and liked it. Went and listened to samples of the other songs on the album and immediately knew I had to have the entire album.

Saw reviews that called her the female Jack Johnson. I find I like Coco better than any Johnson album I've heard. While he as a few strong hits, he has a lot of songs I find myself bored with and forwarding through. I don't have the desire to forward through any of the songs on Coco. Consistenly good and very listenable. Give this one a try.

5 out of 5 stars

The Best Album of the Summer!! July 21, 2007
37 out of 45 found this review helpful

Finally...a listenable CD!! After wasting a ton of money on other summer releases only to be miserably disappointed, I stumbled upon this CD at Target and blindly took a leap of faith. I'm really glad I did. This is the perfect summer album. A mix of semi-tropical sounding, pleasantly lyrical songs that work on a number of different levels. I'm not one to sit and listen to all the words of songs to detect their meanings, I just know what sounds good to me, so I can't comment on the "depth" of Colbie's musicality. But I do know that I had a summer seafood dinner party at my house on the Oregon Coast last night and had this album playing in the background and it set the mood perfectly. Almost everyone there wanted to know who it was and where I got it. That alone is proof that we have finally discovered the ultimate CD for the Summer of 2007.

5 out of 5 stars

The Girl From Malibu August 24, 2007
37 out of 41 found this review helpful

Who is Colbie Caillat? From the CD pix, she looks like a real pretty version of Jennifer Aniston, wholesome, all American girl. There's a mention of her being from MySpaceMalibu, so you expect light and breezy, but it's actually pretty mature and well thought out lyrics that gets your attention, even with the soothing acoustic guitar, the lyrics are pretty serious like "Midnight Bottle" about subduing one's loneliness with a drink(she was 22 at the recording of this CD) or moving away from a bad relationship in "Battle."
The first track "Oxygen" sets the tone of this album with her deep, smokey Rickie Lee Jones voice. With modest beginings, Colbie can be the next big thing, her understated grace and inate talent as a musician might be key to her success. She kinda reminds one of a female version of Jack Johnson or Donovan Frankenritter. So folks looking for something alternative to listen to, this is it.

3 out of 5 stars

Anti-climax, but not bad. July 24, 2007
25 out of 32 found this review helpful

I've followed Colbie's budding career via MySpace this past year, watching with great interest how she became the # 1 unsigned artist on that site, was put under pro management, then was signed to a major label, and now sees her debut record launch, complete with offical website where one can buy Colbie T-shirts, stickers, etc. It's a study in how you can make the public believe that an artist has come from virtually nowhere when in fact her rise has been pretty carefully planned out. Nothing wrong with career planning, but please, marketing/PR people, don't make it look like something it's not.

Her dad Ken Caillat helped produce this CD - he just happens to be the guy who helped produce one of the alltime bestselling albums: Fleetwood Mac's classic "Rumours" as well as other F. Mac albums. So I'm guessing he's got a pretty neat Rolodex of friends in the record biz if ya get my drift.

Having said that - before I get accused of being utterly unfair: Colbie does have talent - she has a sweet mellow voice, albeit not one that stands out from many other female singers in the acoustic folk/soul vein. She does seem genuinely nice and unpretentious - big bonus points for that in a biz where there are far too many divas.

For the past year, several songs from what is now her debut album "Coco" (her nickname) could be heard on her My Space page. "Bubbly" became the big hit - "the single" as it is known in the industry. "Battle" was always my personal favorite and I still think it's by far the stand-out in the batch of 12 tracks. "The Little Things" and "Magic" have been big faves with her My Space fans as well and they are sweet tunes which wisely put Colbie's sunny voice in the spotlight. (according to her bio, the born and bred CA beach girl grew up in Malibu and has often vacationed in Hawaii - sounds kinda like the TV character Hannah Montana!).

Whoever have been the caretakers of her My Space page this past year or two chose to tease the growing fanbase to the point where it was borderline sadistic. Everyone would desperately ask in the comment space on her page "When is your album coming out??!!" and yet it was not until this month that it was finally released. This strategy could have easily backfired: her fans are overwhelmingly teenage girls and twentysomething women and like most young 21st century consumers, they will often loose patience and move on to the the next "hot" thing. However, her fans have proved to be loyal so far - the result is that "Bubbly" shot to the top of iTunes this week and the album followed suit. Her My Space page gets about 50.000 plays - a day - and her total is past 10 million, going back to 2005.

One very unfair practice on My Space is that of so-called "auto bots" which is software that enables a My Space user to automatically "add" friends to their page, which is clearly cheating and officially not allowed on the site, but is becoming more and more common. Reading the comments on Colbie's page, it appears that autobots were used. However, it is also well-known that teenage girls and twentysomething women can make a brand or a name popular in no time because of the "viral" "wildfire" nature of their networking via the web and textmessaging and cell phones. Ya wanna be big? Tell a girl and she will tell 5 girls and they will tell 5 girls in turn, and so on.

I bought the CD today, listened to it, skipping the tracks I was already familiar with for now. My taste in music is unsually eclectic - I will listen to almost anything or at least give it a fair chance. And I love a lot of new music that "old" people like me (I'm 42) wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole - lots of snobbish babyboomers out there!

However, I have to say that the record ultimately felt like an anti-climax after all the teasing. I had hoped for more songs of the "Battle" caliber, more variety, more strongly defined melodies. I'm not asking for heavy duty lyrics - after all, Colbie is just 22 and thankfully not pretending to be singing "the blues" by way of blue eyed soul music. (Joss Stone and Amy Winehouse - are you listening?) But a little more surprises would have gone a long way.

But ultimately, this is a sunny breezy summer album which is what many people supposedly want and need at this point, with our world going to the dogs in so many scary ways. I used to think that we songwriters could wake people up and give them food-for-thought, at least once in a while - now I think that perhaps we are increasingly like the stoic classical quartet that keeps playing on the deck of the "unsinkable" Titanic, right up until she sinks. In other words: songwriters are perhaps merely here to entertain the people - rich, middleclass, working class and poor - on first class, second class and below deck until the bitter and possibly ugly end. Colbie entertains, nothing more, nothing less and I guess there's nothing wrong with that. She seems sweet enough and I'd rather have her be the number 1 artist on iTunes than any of the unnamed divas we are used to seeing these days.

The video for "Bubbly" is very pro and slick , but like a bowl of candy, hard to resist: makes you wanna head to the beach and cuddle up with your boyfriend or girlfriend at the bonfire. Malibu or Hawaii or any other beach for that matter.

3 stars for Colbie's personality, for a sunny album, for excellent production that puts the Ace - her voice - right up front and doesn't bury it under a mess of drum and bass and guitar and keys - or worse - drum machines and synths. And she did pick up the guitar a few years ago and also co-wrote all of the songs - she gets bonus points for that.

I predict that we may see her in feature movies soon, following in the footsteps of Mandy Moore?

1 out of 5 stars

hate it July 18, 2007
11 out of 49 found this review helpful

When I heard "Bubbly" I thought this kid was going to put out a great album, but when I listened to it, that was the only good song on the CD. Very disappointed.

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