From the Washington Post yesterday:
"According to the admittedly sketchy metrics of MySpace, 22-year-old singer-songwriter Colbie Caillat was once the site's most popular unsigned musician. But unlike fellow MySpace sweetheart Tila Tequila, Caillat can actually sing and, if the photos accompanying her major label debut, "Coco," are any indication, she prefers to remain fully clothed.
MySpace stars are usually clamorous creatures better suited to the pages of Maxim magazine than Billboard. It's a wonder Caillat broke through at all: "Coco" is the gentlest of albums, a wispy and amiable exercise in coffeehouse soul that draws equally from Carole King, John Mayer and, more to the point, Jack Johnson, who shares Caillat's love of mildly played, determinedly pleasant folk.
Caillat (the daughter of noted Fleetwood Mac co-producer Ken Caillat) is a warm-voiced and remarkable singer but often the clunkiest of songwriters. The simplicity and sweetness of "Coco's" best tracks (such as "Bubbly," which is powerfully and maybe purposefully reminiscent of Johnson's storied "Bubble Toes") too often gives way to innocuousness (as does the drippy closer, "Capri").
"Coco" is so dogged in its embrace of mid-tempo, diary-entry-style acoustic folk that even its ostensibly upbeat, R&B-inspired tracks threaten to induce a state of comalike mellowness familiar to stoners, surfers and anyone who's ever spent time at Lilith Fair. Caillat, whose air of laid-back chipperness threatens to reach dangerous, Matthew McConaughey levels, is in desperate need of a wizened co-writer and a producer capable of de-perkification. (Is Shelby Lynne available?) With a little seasoning and a judicious layer of grit, she'll be an artist to be reckoned with.
DOWNLOAD THESE: "Bubbly," "Feelings Show," "Oxygen""
