Ronnie Day - The Album

You have to admire a guy who has the guts to set out on a solo musical career at the age of 16 after passing the GED. Ronnie Day made his way during the fledgling stages of his career by selling guitar lessons while recording songs on the side. In the true DIY style, he recorded his first album with a couple mics in a makeshift studio and came out with Nine Sleepless Nights. With pressed cds in hand, he headed across the country, gaining a solid reputation and fan base and also the attention of California’s Militia Group.

Day approached his new record, The Album, with at first all the pop potential of Hanson divided by three, the optimism of the Rocket Summer, then the broken heart of Dashboard Confessional. Day is at his best on the first few hopeful songs about sun and summer in love with Livin for Love and Written at a Rest Stop. His voice is strong and confident, the songs are straight forward and catchy, and the production brings more strength and clarity to his sounds. But the album takes an unfortunate turn a few songs in as Ronnie recounts his recently failed relationship of three years. Its hard not to cringe in awkwardness with lines like “I want the world to know that Jamie broke my heart…”

Everyone has gone through it, and for an artist, its great inspiration. Writing a song about it can be cathartic and cleansing. But mentioning someone’s name in that context in a song that will likely sell tens of thousands of copies? Well, that’s just passive aggressive.

The future is bright, but the present is a bit adolescent. A couple songs are worth salvaging if its summer in love, the rest of this would be best kept under wraps in your guilty pleasures section or in your younger sister’s collection.