Frequent commentor, Vinnie, recently requested that I post the official mj review of the newest Collective Soul release, Youth. I haven’t forgotten the request. I’ve just been trying to figure out how to do it. (I don’t want to let Vinnie down. He alone is over half of our regular mj readers.) There isn’t a Musical Review Division here at mj. Most of our staff are in the Making Fun of Headlines and Dopey Picture Caption divisions with a few to spare for the Snarky Political Comments and Serious Religion departments. Since I can’t figure out how to delegate this task, I’ll have to do it myself.

But I hesitate to try this. Musical reviews aren’t my strength. OK, I’ll be blunt: I’m lousy at this. In attempting to do this, I feel like a hockey player who is asked to figure skate. I’ll do my best, but if anyone says I don’t know a lutz from a salchow, I’ll take the easy way out: I’ll break my stick across them and go sit down for two minutes. In other words, I’m a ham-handed, make-fun-of-things kind of guy. Subtlety and refined insights aren’t my strength. I know what I like, but I can’t say why. I don’t have any musical insights but I’ll give it a try.

To set the background: I like Collective Soul. I generally enjoy their music. However, I find them to be a band that has one or two songs on an album that really grab me the first time I hear them. I love those songs, but I love them too much. In a couple months, I find that I’ve tired of them. Whereas there are other albums that don’t grab me like Collective Soul on first hear, I find that they grow on me, and I am listening to those other albums months and years later after I’ve set the Collective Soul aside.

In other words, for me Collective Soul doesn’t stand up to a lot of listening. Perhaps that is because I find that most of their songs are built around a catchy guitar lick and it feels like the guitar lick was their primary goal with the rest of the song being added on to make it marketable.

With that as a background, I like the new album. My son has stated that Youth it is one of Collective Soul’s six best albums. (That’s a joke. They only have six studio albums.) I’ll go further and rank it among Hints Allegations & Things Left Unsaid and Collective Soul as one of my three favorite Collective Soul albums, with Youth possibly being the first. (I need to give it a little more time to settle in its true position.)

As with most Collective Soul albums, the first song is the real grabber. I mentioned Better Now in an earlier post as a great song to listen to while running. I haven’t yet tired of the song, but from my experience with the other Collective Soul grabbers, I’m expecting it to happen, and so I am purposefully not listening to it as much as I would otherwise. When I hear it, I’ve got to stop what I’m doing, listen and sing along, especially the “Yeah, yeah” responses. It’s a great song, and I’ll feel bad if/when I get tired of it.

There really aren’t any songs I dislike on the album. All are standard Collective Soul fare. Heavy guitar driven rock. Some catchy phrases: “I’m happy as Christmas all wrapped to be seen.” — Better Now. “Cause you’re beautiful my love, when I close my eyes. Yeah you’re beautiful my love, under heaven’s skies.” — Under Heaven’s Skies. “Sing, like a bird that is now released. Like an angel with clip-on wings.” — General Attitude.

Overall, I’d say Youth has a mellow but hardy patina that begins with a full somnambulant ambience and moves on to a rich and full finish. (I warned you I was no good at this reviewing stuff.)

And with that I’ll throw a few punches and be out of here with a game misconduct.