Review Summary: The real Caleb Johnson is hidden in there, somewhere...
At some point, cultural phenomena are bound to regress in popularity, slowly fading into irrelevancy as newer, more modern fads take its place. Such is the plight of reality singing competitions such as American Idol which have seen a steep decline in popularity ever since their inception. Ever since peaking with 31.17 million viewers in with 2006’s fifth season, the former ratings juggernaut racked up a viewer average of 11.94 million, the smallest number of viewers in the show’s thirteen year history. Of course, there could be rather valid reasons for the gradual depreciation of American Idol’s popularity – perhaps people finally were fed up with watching a dozen singers compete for a record deal, especially when the contestant pool wasn’t even that talented to begin with.
It’s not hard to see how Caleb Johnson falls into the whole picture. The Tennessee-born southern rocker has declared himself to be the first “real rocker” to win the singing competition, which has mostly dominated by would-be pop stars and the infamous “white guy with acoustic guitar” tag. He brought of a sense of energy to the show, firing his way through classic rock staples such as Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused”, “Dream On” by Aerosmith, “Working Man” by Rush, and “Demons” by Imagine Dragons (well, maybe not so much that last one). His vibrant stage presence and arena-ready vocals added a sense of personality when many of his competitors felt hollow and lifeless. Thus, after fourteen weeks of bringing some good ol’ fashioned classic rock to the forefront, he was crowned the winner of the aging show’s thirteenth season, which also gave him a deal with a major record label; in this case, Interscope.
The main problem with Johnson’s debut album
Testify is that the raucous energy and fire that he brought to the stage in his live performances on Idol is shockingly absent. Gone are his shrill screams, his vivacious swagger and his personality – everything that made him stand out amongst the crowd of generic wannabe pop stars. It seems like the Caleb Johnson on
Testify is a tamed, subdued version of the real him, and that just doesn’t do him any favors. Throughout the whole album, there’s this feeling that he wants to uncage the “true rocker” in him, yet he never does. Johnson never uses his voice to its full potential, which is disappointing, really, because if he did this album would be so much better. The album also suffers from overproduction, which loses the rock sheen that Johnson gave in his live performances in favor of a more marketable, pop-friendly sound. His backing band consists of session guitarist Phil X and drummer Josh Freese of A Perfect Circle and Nine Inch Nails fame, and while they mostly stick to the basics, there are a couple of hidden gems every once in a while, including a talkbox and slide guitar effects on the title track. Luckily, there are some songs that do a decent job at capturing the classic rock image that Johnson built up, including “Save Me”, the brass-tinged “Let Me In” and the title track.
Aside from a lack of vocal charisma,
Testify also suffers from some tediously bland ballads, and the worst part is that they’re all clustered together in the album’s center section. Any sentimentality brought in by “Only One” is swept away by the sameness of “Fighting Gravity”, which recycles so much from the former that it’s hard to even differentiate the two, and there’s still more after that. Even if the first half of
Testify also had a tendency to sound the same, at least there was still some energy in it. Granted, there wasn’t as much energy as there was when he sang live, but the bar wasn’t even set that high. As soon as the opening notes of “Sailing Away” play, you know exactly what you’re getting to, and most of the time, it isn’t too great. Granted, there are a few tunes – “Save Me”, “Devil’s Daughter” and the title track included – that show off his rocker side, and his singing is slightly improved on these songs.
Despite Johnson’s talents as a singer,
Testify does little to nothing to show off his skills, and his vocal performance on his debut album is far from his best and only a fraction of his true potential. Throughout the whole record, it seems that the Caleb Johnson singing is a fake imitation of him, and the real him is hiding under the pressure of major labels and greed. In a way, winning American Idol would prove to be a death knell for him. As the champion, Interscope Records changed his style up to make him more marketable to a wider audience, milking the cash cow of a brand that isn’t even all too relevant anymore. Had he lost, maybe he would have more creative freedom over the musical direction he took, but he didn’t, and we’re left with a record that is not representative of his sound. The funny thing is, despite Interscope’s attempt to mainstream Johnson,
Testify is ironically forecasted to sell 11,000 copies in its first week, the lowest sales figures ever for an Idol winner in the show’s history. It’s only representative of the bigger situation, which is the fact that people just don’t care about the competition anymore after all these years. Then again, maybe that’s not such a bad thing after all.
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