vinylfanatics.com

**OK Go - Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky**
★★★★☆

By 2010, OK Go had already established themselves as the internet's favorite band, though not necessarily for the reasons they'd originally intended. Their treadmill-choreographed video for "Here It Goes Again" had racked up millions of views and turned these Chicago art-rock misfits into viral sensations. But with great YouTube fame comes great responsibility, and the pressure was mounting for Damian Kulash and company to prove they were more than just clever video directors with a decent hook or two.

Enter "Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky," an album that finds OK Go wrestling with their newfound fame while simultaneously embracing it with the enthusiasm of kids in a candy store. Named after a phrase from John Ruskin's "The Elements of Drawing," the record signals the band's artistic ambitions from the jump. This isn't just another collection of indie-rock anthems designed to soundtrack your next viral dance routine – though it certainly doesn't shy away from that responsibility either.

The album opens with "WTF?," a question that feels both existential and practical given the band's trajectory. Built around a hypnotic drum machine and Kulash's increasingly frantic vocals, it's a mission statement wrapped in a panic attack. The song captures the disorienting nature of sudden fame while maintaining the band's knack for crafting earworms that burrow deep into your consciousness. It's followed by "This Too Shall Pass," perhaps the album's masterpiece and certainly its most enduring contribution to the cultural conversation. The track builds from a gentle acoustic strum into a full-blown orchestral celebration, complete with a gospel choir that sounds like it was beamed down from rock and roll heaven. Lyrically, it's a meditation on impermanence that feels both comforting and urgent – a perfect encapsulation of the band's ability to find profundity in pop music's three-minute format.

Musically, OK Go continues to defy easy categorization, blending indie rock with electronic flourishes, power-pop sensibilities, and an almost theatrical sense of drama. Producer Dave Fridmann, fresh off his work with The Flaming Lips and MGMT, brings a psychedelic sheen to the proceedings that makes even the most straightforward rock songs feel slightly unmoored from reality. This is particularly evident on "Skyscrapers," where layers of synthesizers and backwards vocals create a dreamlike atmosphere that wouldn't sound out of place on a Lips album.

The band's fascination with rhythm and movement – so evident in their videos – translates beautifully to the album format. "End Love" pulses with an urgent energy that makes it impossible to sit still, while "I Want You So Bad I Can't Breathe" channels pure desire into a four-minute burst of controlled chaos. These aren't just songs; they're kinetic experiences that seem to demand physical response.

Not every experiment lands perfectly. "All Is Not Lost" feels overstuffed with ideas, and some of the album's more electronic diversions can feel disconnected from the band's core strengths. But even the album's weaker moments demonstrate a willingness to take risks that's increasingly rare in an industry obsessed with algorithmic predictability.

The real triumph of "Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky" lies in how it manages to satisfy both the casual YouTube viewer and the serious music fan. Tracks like "White Knuckles" and "Needing/Getting" would go on to spawn their own viral videos, but they work just as well divorced from their visual accompaniments. This is music that understands its own artifice without being cynical about it – a neat trick that few bands manage to pull off.

A decade-plus later, the album stands as perhaps OK Go's most cohesive artistic statement, a record that bridges the gap between their scrappy indie origins and their current status as multimedia artists. While subsequent releases have continued to push boundaries, none have captured the particular moment when internet fame and artistic ambition collided quite so successfully.

In an era where the line between musician and content creator grows increasingly blurred, "Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky" feels prophetic. OK Go didn't just adapt to the new media landscape – they helped define it, one precisely choreographed moment at a time. The album remains their most compelling argument that in the right hands, viral fame and artistic integrity aren't mutually exclusive concepts.