The Loop : Joshua Radin - We Were Here

Joshua Radin - We Were Here (2006)

Singer/songwriters are tough. It seems like everyone ends up writing music, some of which are never intended to be widely listened to. They're often mis-represented and pigeon-holed into being "folk" or "emo". And as we learned with Denison Witmer, it's hard to grab attention when your tone is simply quieter.

Then there's Joshua Radin. I got this CD in a big stack of "welcome to the team" CDs I took home after landing a job as a college marketing rep for Sony. I gravitated more towards the Say Anything and Cartel's of my pile, however circled back to Joshua out of sheer curiosity. I hadn't started working as a rep yet and was unfamiliar with his back story. I simply fell in love with his quite, whispery voice and muted guitar tones, something I had grown to love from artists like Elliott Smith. It was very lyrically driven, with likes like "I could have lost myself in rough blue waters in your eyes" and ended with a steallar cover of "Only You". This is one of the few artists I recall describing to friends as "man, where has he been all my life?"

After a while I started to do more research and found out that he had only begun playing a few years back. He happened to be friends with Zach Braff (in fact, makes a cameo in Garden State in the "party" scene at the beginning) and had been all over as far as licensing. He was primed to take the same route as The Fray or The Shins in being used in licensing and breaking through in the hearts and minds of his listeners. However, this association proved to be the best and worst thing that could have happened to Joshua. There seemed to be a vast misconception of what kind of music he might create from Garden State-burned-out consumers. He was a good looking Hollywood type guy but didn't play the type of music that appealed to the Jack Johnson loving frat boy. Once that Garden State culture moved into the mainstream, people wanted so badly for him to speak to their realities and when it required a more careful listen, they weren't willing to take the time. It reflects an overall shift in attention span for most music listeners and Joshua was left floating in a dedicated cult following.

That's not to say that he wasn't successful, because he absolutely was. One of the Scrubs licensing placements spiked his single downloads in a big way and he was chosen by Ellen and Portia Del Rossi to perform at their wedding, simply because they were fans. Also, Ryan Adams played guitar on a new version of "You've Got Growin' Up to Do", which is pretty awesome. He proved to write great pop songs as well as haunting guitar ballads that challenged the listener in taking that careful listen. Maybe it was never meant for the masses in the same context as some of those Garden State bands, but an album like this has the ability to speak to a lot of people in whatever way it chooses. Even quietly.