Album Review: Oh Pep! Stadium Cake

Yes, Olivia and Pepita can see you.

Usually, if a music critic gives a review of an album or group you probably haven’t heard of, especially if they only review a few albums a year, it is probably a favorable review. After all, why would they bother reviewing it, then? However, that’s not exactly happening with this review.

I first encountered Oh Pep! through All Songs Considered, first in an episode and then in a NPR Tiny Desk Concert. After getting a taste, I was excited to listen to Oh Pep!’s first full length album, Stadium Cake, which is streaming this week on NPR’s First Listen series through Wednesday (6/22). What drew me to them? Mostly the song writing—interesting lyrics, fresh chord progressions, and highly-structured songs that aren’t the usual verse/chorus or ABABCB.

After listening to the album, I have to say that while I still think the songs are good, I have a beef with the production. It sounds to me like Oh Pep! is doing covers of their own songs. Or, to say it another way, they got in the studio and starting putting stuff in songs because “that’s what you do to songs in the studio, right?” I think this album would have been much better with less heavy-handed production, or maybe just different production.

For example, the bluesy guitar riff in “Seven Babies” messes up with otherwise might be a great song, like a greasy toupee dropped on the Thanksgiving turkey. “Tea Milk and Honey” would have worked so much better with a piano or guitar rather than the electronic instrument at the beginning; it’s definitely a relief when that instrument is replaced with Olivia's acoustic guitar as the song progresses. The group singalongs and layered vocals in "Crazy Feels" and "Wanting" both fall flat, too, along with other added synth sounds.

The album is it’s best when it focuses on the melody, lyric delivery, and acoustic sounds—like the atonal strumming “Bushwick,” the bi-tonal string hook in “Crazy Feels,” the violin riff in “Doctor, Doctor,” and the mandolin at the beginning of “Only Everyone” and "Trouble Now" (though some of the instrument solos could use some more virtuosic flare). Most other sounds get in the way, including the many of the layered vocals.

Despite the production missteps, the songs still come through, especially with “Doctor Doctor,” a poignant and emotional coming-of-age song about deciding whether to have an (unexpected?) baby, and a great example of how repeating the same lyric over and over again can be successful (this happens in other tracks; every lyric here is placed for a reason). Also, “The Race,” a lyrically genius track with melodies that accentuate the words, though this song also suffers from unsatisfactory production (mostly off-putting drum loops and too much change between sections).

I’m usually a bigger fan of the recording than the live set, but I’ll have to say that’s the opposite here. After listening to the album and then going back to the live Tiny Desk, the Tiny Desk set is just better. Just take the first song in the Tiny Desk set “The Race”—in the live version, Olivia communicates the words better, and somehow the accompaniment focuses the words, melody, and structure instead of distracting from it.* Also, the album track seems to end suddenly, but the live version ends in just the right place. My theory is that the producer didn’t quite understand the radical song structures and so couldn’t quite sonically communicate them, while those structures seem totally natural in the live set. In these songs, just because something is repeated and at the end of a song, it doesn't mean it the "chorus" and should get the biggest instrumentation. Perhaps this production/structure misunderstanding is what happened to the “The Situation,” which sounds like the section and lyrics were loosely stitched together. "Only Everyone" actually has some good structure/instrumentation decisions, though still suffers from overproduction in the end.

So, in summary, I’m still not sure if I’m going to buy the album or just keep going back to the live Tiny Desk set. 

What do you think?

*I also think the tempos were slightly faster in the live set than the recording; or at least, the delivery seemed more immediate.