Review: Oh No Oh My, People Problems
Oh No Oh My (previously Oh No! Oh My!) lost something more than lines and dots between their debut album and their second full-length release, People Problems, but the Austin, Texas based band claims that the change was a necessary one. Their myspace page explains that “Oh No Oh My grew up” between their 2006 self-titled debut and People Problems. Ultimately, I agree, but a lot of things come with growing up. The album definitely reflects maturity that was missing from earlier work, but there is also an inescapable sense that the spontaneity that defined the band’s first musical efforts left with the exclamation points.
Pitchfork described Oh No Oh My’s first album as a successful example of the “half-serious, half-goofball indie shtick.” Daniel Hoxmeier, one of the band’s four members, claimed that the thought behind that album was “write a bunch of songs, put ‘em on a CD-R, and hopefully clubs will let us play.” That plan worked, with the band opening for the likes of The Flaming Lips and Gnarls Barkley, among others, and landing a spot in the 2006 Lollapalooza line up. But the band seems to write Oh No! Oh My! off now as an insignificant and illegitimate musical endeavor. I cannot really shake the impression that this response reflects the loss of innocence point of just about any coming of age story. The band looks back on its goofy, fun, and ultimately well-written songs like “I Have No Sister,” “Jane is Fat” and “Lisa, Make Love! (It’s Okay!”) as child’s play in comparison to People Problems. I’m not so sure that’s the case.
People Problems is much more serious lyrically, and generally sounds more refined instrumentally than Oh No! Oh My! – the work of fellow Austin indie rockers Spoon’s sound engineers Jeff Byrd and Brad Bell definitely had something to do with this refinement – but the band hasn’t lost its love for upbeat melodies. This often leads to a bizarre juxtaposition of happy tunes and twisted lyrics, like on “So I Took You,” a two-minute tale that at first seems romantic and pleasant, with high-pitched vocals and speedy, cheerful guitar strumming that make you think of warms days on the beach. But just when you start to feel comfortable, Oh No Oh My hits you with the twist that the man is really a “knife-wielding pervert.” “Brains” is another good one, chronicling a man’s mental decline into ambiguity set to a backdrop of steadily building percussion. It is in these narrative twists that we can still see the creativity that Oh No Oh My used to reflect through sonic experimentalism (like the melding of folksy hand-claps and techno beats in “I Have No Sister”).
Hoxmeier is quick to categorize that experimentalism of old as simple immaturity, but Despite People Problems’s more refined sound leading to a more complete and intriguing album than past releases, I still feel that it could use a little of the funky spontaneity that Oh No Oh My seems to feel it is has now grown past. Hoxmeier describes the album as “a juxtaposition of ‘my life is over’ and ‘my life is just beginning.’” This is a fitting description, considering the fact that the album seems to mark the end of the excitement(!)-filled days of the band and the beginning of a more developed, but also less adventurous era in Oh No Oh My’s musical progression. Basically, Oh No Oh My is, in fact, grown up, but I can’t help feeling a little sentimental about it.
– Dan Stokes, Co-Host of The Weak End Edition, Fridays 4-6pm.
