Alex Greenwald has been the mastermind between many amazing songs, most well known being the theme song to the O.C., Phantom Planet’s California. However, while Phantom Planet has been on hold (for way too long) aside from a small amount of reunion shows, Greenwald has continued creating music and he recently released a solo album, Yo, on iTunes.
You’d be forgiven for not hearing about said album as the singer kept it quiet on his twitter and other social networks and people only became aware of it when someone stumbled across it one day and mentioned it in the Phantom Planet tag on Tumblr.
The album definitely should be shouted about though, as Greenwald has picked up where Phantom Planet left off with his alternative rock genius.
If you’re a fan of Vampire Weekend, this album is definitely for you. The album has the same weird vibes and tracks like Still Too Soon and Track03 would not be out of place if Ezra Koenig was singing them on a VW album. However, the album is still refreshingly original and is definitely not a copy of other leading alternative artists, even though the influences are clearly evident.
Greenwald has put his individual stamp all over this album and the mass amount of possible summer anthems on this album (Balisong, On My Own, You Found Each Other) show that he definitely doesn’t need Phantom Planet or Mark Ronson & The Business Intl (yeah he played a part in that too) to create phenomenal music.
You Found Each Other, the closing track to the short album (disappointingly under half an hour long in total), is particularly refreshing. Whilst Greenwald has shown off his cutesy love song writing skills on Phantom Planet songs such as I Don’t Mind, You Found Each Other takes another angle, the lyrics being about the hope found in other couples rather than having found a special person to write about yet – “There’ll be many who will never find each other / but I haven’t given up hope yet brother / cause you found her.”
Overall, this album is worth a buy on iTunes for sure and is bound to be the soundtrack of your summer.