Review Summary: In (slight) defense of?
In a brief moment of nostalgic lucidity, the song "50 Ways to Say Goodbye" burrowed its way out of my mind, and it got me thinking before finally running through
California 37 - is it apropos to admit to having a soft spot for Train? There was no way they were going to make it on any "Best Bands Evar!!1!1!!" list, but what's really the worst they've done besides release a true-to-original covers album of
Led Zeppelin II and take heavy influence from 1930's jazz hit "Heart and Soul" for the melody of "Play That Song" in 2016? Even at their worst, they were really just inoffensive pop rock; I'm not convinced they ever quite had the same fall-off musically as say, Maroon 5. Train at their core were
fine, a bit bland, a bit stupid lyrically thanks to singer Pat Monahan's bizarre writing style, and that does not change here at all.
California 37, other than the occasional foray into some other influences, is more or less a retread of
Save Me, San Francisco, an album that I used to own the "Golden Gate Edition" of as a young child. The highlight is definitely "50 Ways", with its mariachi and Tex-Mex influence creating a somewhat unique vibe for a Train hit single, as Pat Monahan chooses to center the song's lyrics around lying to his friends and telling them that his ex-lover died in various bizarre ways, and also asking said ex-lover, "how could you leave on Yom Kippur?". It's a stupid premise, but it's catchy dumb fun pop-rock and carries the exact kitschy summertime vibe that a pop song released as a radio single in July 2012 after a few months sitting there on the album was meant to have. "Drive By" is much less unique, and it got so overplayed that it's completely fair that many grew to find it completely insufferable, and the other main singles didn't seem to attract as much mainstream attention as those two ("Bruises" peaked at #79 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "Mermaid" only made it to the Adult Contemporary and Adult Pop Airplay charts on Billboard, #27 and #12 respectively), but they're similarly alright.
Nothing else here really deviates from what you'd expect, and the results are fairly average. "Bruises" is pretty, and Ashley Monroe's feature is cool. "This'll Be My Year" kicks off the album alright enough. "You Can Finally Meet My Mom" is the lyrical nadir for sure, as Monahan spends a little under five minutes name-dropping a lot of dead people (including The Undertaker, which got a mild chuckle out of me because while the man playing the character is still alive, he is "the Deadman" in kayfabe, after all) and not really doing much else. The closing stretch of "We Were Made for This" and "When the Fog Rolls In" ends off
California 37 about as well as you'd expect, with some solid piano arrangements reminiscent of The Fray having a stronger focus. It may just be me, but as average as this was, I couldn't bring myself to fully dislike this. It's like eating McDonalds, the food may not be up to par with a five-star Michelin meal, but it'll still quench your hunger well enough. Train is like a fast-food band, sure you know you're not getting a masterpiece, but for what it is, it's
fiiiiine.
