Waiting on a Song
Dan Auerbach
Recommended For:
Dads or uncles into ‘70s-ish radio folk-rock
Absolute, die-hard Dan Auerbach fans
Pros:
It’s not just Black Keys minus Patrick Carney
New-ish direction for Dan
Cons:
Bland and boring songwriting
Does not contain Dan’s best vocal performances
Lack of energy or memorability
Dan Auerbach, guitarist and vocalist of The Black Keys, has released his second solo album called Waiting on a Song. While Waiting on a Song is only Auerbach’s second solo album, Dan has been quite busy outside being in The Black Keys by performing with The Arcs and producing for artists such as Ray LaMontagne, Lana Del Rey, and Cage the Elephant.
I will admit it. I am a Dan Auerbach fanboy. As my millions of avid readers will recall, I included Dan’s album in my most anticipated albums list for 2017. I have greatly enjoyed the larger part of The Black Keys’ catalog throughout the years with the exception of their last album Turn Blue, which I felt was a rather failed attempt at achieving a more psychedelic and dreamy sound. However, with The Arcs’ 2015 album Yours, Dreamily, it seemed Auerbach was finally starting to branch out of the garage and glam rock influences that became so synonymous with The Black Keys with some quality tunes. However, this album turns out to be one of the more skippable and forgettable albums in Dan’s discography.
It seems Auerbach abandons his garage rock roots for a more country, folky, ‘70’s radio rock type of sound on Waiting on a Song, which on its own is not a terrible thing. It just isn’t well done in the end. The majority of the songs on here just have no way of popping or standing out in the end. The songwriting is plain, somewhat predictable, and far from memorable. Some shining examples of this would be the eponymous track, “Shine on Me,” and “Livin’ in Sin.” These songs seem to try to rely on catchiness and fun production rather than virtuosic musicianship or highly creative, outside-the-box songwriting, which isn’t bad on its own. El Camino’s songs relied on this and it worked pretty well for the most part. Waiting on a Song, however, is not able to pull it off.
Another disappointing factor of this album was Dan’s vocal performances. I didn’t necessarily come in to this album expecting Dan’s voice to return to its heavy, soulful, raspy state like in early Black Keys albums, but his voice seemed to be pretty limited and tame on here. Dan even seemed to struggle a little vocally on songs like “King of a One Horse Town.”
While I’m not hugely impressed with Waiting on a Song, there are still a few things I enjoyed. The standouts for me were “King of a One Horse Town,” “Malibu Man,” and “Cherry Bomb.” “King of a One Horse Town” has some fun little things production-wise. I enjoyed the strings complimenting the organ and strummin’ acoustic guitars, along with the backing vocals that come in during the choruses. The end result is a song that sounds very full and grand. “Malibu Man” is a pretty fun song for similar reasons. Once again, strings come in on this track to really help fill out the song, except now it is accompanied with a little horn section as well. Both work very well together to make the chorus sound nice and huge-sounding. “Cherry Bomb” has some neat percussion going on in the back like bongos, cowbells, and even a whistle that add an interesting layer to this song.
I wish there was more to say on this album, but there really isn’t. For the most part, the songs on Waiting on a Song are forgettable and non-essential in comparison to the large catalog of Dan Aeurbach’s work. While there’s not really anything on here that strikes me as bad, there’s not much that stands out at all. With the exception of a few songs, this thing is unfortunately the musical equivalent of eating plain white bread with a glass of tap water.
Favorite songs: “Malibu Man,” “Cherry Bomb”
5/10
