Colbie Caillat arrived somewhat recently onto the ever-changing pop music scene, yet. the blonde beauty from Malibu had all the right connections from the get-go and the talent to match. Her father, Ken Caillat, co-produced for Mick Fleetwood and inevitably put his daughter’s songs in the right hands. After the success of Caillat’s first album, Coco, the California girl released her latest work, Breakthrough last week.
Caillat falls into the folk-pop classification, which tends to work best a cappella or with little instrumentation such as piano or acoustic guitar. It becomes difficult to integrate percussion, bass and special effects and still maintain a song’s folk integrity. In her latest album, Caillat experiments with new instrumentation in some songs, while staying true to her heartfelt acoustic style from Coco in others. “You Got Me” and “Fearless” are the best examples of pure Caillat — tracks like her hit “Bubbly” that seem to easily get stuck in heads and hearts.
“These songs are about growing up, experiencing life, love, making mistakes, and learning from them. … I had to break through my fears, insecurities and self doubt, there are so many battles that we all have to go through in life that are for us to learn from, we grow stronger from them,” Caillat said in the jacket of the album. For this reason, some of the songs on Breakthrough are slightly more self-reflective and honest than Coco. As seen in the lyrics of the song “Breakin’ at the Cracks,” “I’m breaking at the cracks/ And everything goes black/ It’s another heart attack/ And I can’t handle that/ Woo, love I need you back.”
The star songs of this album are “You Got Me” and “Fearless.” With a catchy tune and sweet lyrics such as “I think I felt my heart skip a beat/ I’m standing here and I can/ hardly breathe/ You got me. You got me/ The way you take my hand is just so sweet/ And that crooked smile of yours/ It knocks me off my feet,” “You Got Me” stays true to Caillat’s original style of folk-pop.
“Fallin’ for You” follows in the same vein as “You Got Me,” however, it does not have the catchiness of “Rainbow” and “Fearless” because of the added instrumentals. It seems as if Caillat’s beautiful voice clashes with the instruments instead of being enhanced by them. The simplicity of the acoustic guitar and piano still mesh most naturally with Caillat’s sultry, soulful style. Caillat also collaborates with Jason Reeves in “Droplets,” which adds a little vocal diversity to hold the listener’s attention.
Colbie Caillat’s successes in this album are similar to those of Coco, however, the failures of Breakthrough lie in the differences between the two albums. The best songs are the ones most consistent with her simplistic, acoustic style, while the rest were a valiant try at some creative instrumentation that failed to stick.
3 stars out of 5.
