Train
For Me, It’s You (
by Marc Hirsh
Train
For Me, It’s You (
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in The Boston Globe, February 17, 2006
You’d think that with three studio albums (all
platinum) and
a couple of Grammys under its belt, Train would have developed some
sort of
distinct identity by now. But the band spends #4 sounding like
everybody and
nobody. In its sound and vision, For Me,
It’s You could just as easily have been a Hootie and the Blowfish
album,
while Pat Monahan’s voice is a cipher, with strong enough echoes of
Paul
Carrack, Robin Zander, a young Sting and (in first single “Cab” and
elsewhere) David
Gray that the singer seems to be still searching for his own style.
With current
Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O’Brien working hard to create the
illusion
of subtlety, the band plays Sugar’s “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” as
though it
has no idea what to do with it. More inexcusable is “Get Out,” which is
such a
blatant ripoff of Coldplay’s “Clocks” (and, by extension, last year’s
“Speed Of
Sound”) that it practically begs for a lawsuit (that the beginning of
“Skyscraper” makes the song sound like it’s going to be a “Fix You”
clone is
doubly worrisome). Whatever its commercial fortunes may be, For
Me, It’s You is, artistically, where
Train reaches the end of the line.