O . A . AARRGGHHH

I should go to bed right now but Jodie Meeks' 54 points has inspired me to try to master what I'm good at. And since I already did that once today, I thought I would capture a thought I had on the drive home today.

Somehow my CD player in my truck has turned into a radio. I don't know if someone else drove it and switched it to "Tune" or if I was trying to get a traffic update or something inside me really wanted to hear "Hey There Delilah" one more time. Whatever happened, I was getting songs that I hadn't downloaded projected out of my speakers. And twice today I heard something that upset me.

I understand that sometimes people have to change the way they do things to become more successful. I'm not mad at Tim Wakefield for switching to a knuckleball because he was on a collision course with mediocrity throwing his old pitches. I wasn't angry that Antonio Gates went pro in football after only playing basketball in college, because he could be a star at football and roster filler in the D-League. But I am irate at O.A.R.! Because at some point in the last five years, they decided to jump directly off of Black Rock and onto the money train. And much like the guy at Robert Sledge's party, they were not the same after that.

Twice today I heard the song "Shattered (Turn the Car Around)" and each time (including the second time in 8 hours) I had no idea who it was singing. There was no three chord progressions, no Old Man Time references, and not even the same voice. It didn't sound like them, and even worse it sounded like there was a chance it could be a Daughtry-wannabe. And even worse than that, Rick Dees loved it!!

I decided to get the most factual information I could find so I headed over to Google and found their Wikipedia page. It seems that this new "mainstream" O.A.R. will attach their songs to anything from All-Star Games to "Try Our Best To Get Overly Sentimental and Make You Cry (Extreme Home Makeover)." And if I remember correctly, a few years back "Love and Memories" was very close to knocking Luther Vandross (R.I.P.) off of the CBS March Madness highlight reel. Wait a minute . . .that "Love and Memories" was by O.A.R.? Are there two bands named OAR?

I remember a parking lot a while back, full of ruffled-skirt wearing young girls, where I watched Matt Nathanson musically dominate Howie Day and his band. While this was four or five years ago, it has stayed with me because of the discovery of Matt Nathanson and because of the immense anticipation I had to see O.A.R. in concert that night as the headliner. And on a mosquito-infested stage later that evening, I saw a band that had everything going for it -- a large, loyal fanbase who knew the word to every song and the name of every band member. They had this sound that no one could copy. Whether it be the crazy strums, crazier lyrics, or "Crazy Game of Poker," THIS band was going places. And now, they sound like they've copied everyone else to get to the top.

I know they're probably swimming in money like the opening credits of "Ducktales" right now, but the point is they completely changed their sound to get there. And they didn't need to. They needed patience. You think Bon Iver was worried about Top 40 radio when he locked himself in that cabin? He had a pretty good year. You think Blitzen Trapper were worried how a story of a man turning into a wolf turning back into a man would go over with Casey Kasem? Didn't sound like it. I know everyone wants to be successful, but at some point doesn't the integrity of the music mean more than the money? Isn't that what an artist is all about?

Things like this really get to me because I was so proud to be an O.A.R. fan and so proud to sing their songs at our shows and tell other people about them. What if they waited a couple of years before they took my advice? What will they think of me when they hear them now? I was just about this pissed off when, after years of repping the best John Mayer songs ("Comfortable" "Why Did You Mess With Forever?" "Man on The Side" "Sucker"), I saw Sanjaya (sp?) perform "Waiting on the World to Change" on American Idol. And I knew right then, that one of my friends, somewhere, sitting in a videogame chair, had finally figured out the answer to "You know how I know Mike's gay?"

I wanted to join in on Roger's venture of creating this blog for opportunities to not only share new finds but to also gripe about things exactly such as this. I'm not going to post any pictures or link any songs here because I don't think it would do this entry justice. If you don't agree, please tell me why. I wanna know why O.A.R. still has that magic. I wanna know, if you've seen them lately, how the old classics mesh perfectly with the new crap. And I wanna know, more than anything, why they didn't sell their souls. Make me believe again.