THREE CHEERS FOR US MORONS!
*rah, rah, rah*
Someone needs to take their music less seriously... I mean, c'mon. Pop music can be good. Why? Well, hey, everything's been pop at one time or another. U2 is considered pop music. Aerosmith is pop music. Third Eye Blind? Pop rock. Pop is not neccessarily shallow or even boring; it's merely a facet of music in which the sound is more endearing to the human ear than say, heavy metal.
People have complained about the simplicity of this album... I like it.
It makes me want to dance, it makes me want to smile -- especially "Innocent".
Maybe it's just me, but I listen to OLP for more than just the fact that they "sound good". It seems their music is always there to reflect on me, when I need a pick-me-up, or a this-shit-happens. I've had a rough couple of years, and OLP's really shone as my favorite band in those past couple years. When I'm down, there's "Clumsy" and "Life" and now, "Innocent" and "Made of Steel"; when I feel crazy, "One Man Army", "The Birdman", and "Starseed" are perfect to listen to; I even signed a friend's yearbook this year "with all my faith/and all my heart/and all the simple things you are". Gravity's a good album, better than most of the shit released these days. Simplicity, if done right, can be perfect.
And this isn't perfect... but it's pretty damn close. I haven't sung along to any album as much as I have with this, not even Spiritual Machines or All That You Can't Leave Behind. That says something.
If you want to look at it a certain way, Stanley Kubrick films were never really looked at as classics until years and years later, when things developed to a point where it was obvious he was working ahead of whatever groove there was. Give Gravity more than the day it's been out, folks. It'll grow on you.