As my most loyal fans remember, back in April 2006, I wrote my review of young Mr. Geiger’s first album, Underage Thinking. Back then, I said: “Teddy Geiger’s album, ‘Underage Thinking’, has that enjoyable mix of folky guitar songs of Mayer, piano stylings of Gavin DeGraw, and straight “classic” rock hits like Train. Plus, every so often, it surprises you with a few funky licks like Maroon 5.” And I still think it. His first album had a good mix of modern and classic rock stylings with a creative use of piano and guitar licks. In particular, I came to like the songs “These Walls” and “Possibilities” in addition to the radio hit, “For You I Will.”
With his second album, Teddy Geiger is trying to trade in his youthful, high-school sound of “Thinking” for newer sounds, but what really drew my interest is that it basically going to be a popularity contest amongst the “Tedheads” - aka his fan base. Yes, that’s right, he is putting all the songs he’s deciding between on his website (http://www.teddygeiger.com) for his fans to choose from - all 33 of them.
Now, as any intrepid reporter would, I sat and listened to each and every song with my music experts, the brothers John, Paul, George and Ringo McHates-You and their sister, Yoko, to get a sort of RMTJ Roundtable on what we thought. For the most part, we all agreed that Geiger has kept the breathy, airy voice, but scrapped the kind of musical coherence that made his first album pleasant to listen to. The songs had some odd chord structures and unlike “Thinking,” the lyrics felt like they were written by a teenager (which, I suppose he still is). The only song I genuinely liked was “Torn Photograph.” All the rest were simply pedestrian.
I still like his music, I just wonder if he’s trying to do too much. None the less, vote on the songs if you’re interested. (FYI - not surprisingly, Yoko didn’t like any of his music.)