Ryan Tedder

OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder aka Already Gone/Halo writer blamed Lady GaGa for Leona Lewis’s flop in the US!

He said in an interview…

“In the US, unless you’re Justin Timberlake or Beyoncé, you cannot put out a song and not be in the country when it comes out.

Leona was gone for six weeks when ‘Happy’ came out because she was promoting the record in other countries – it wasn’t her fault; she couldn’t be two places in once.

I had radio stations telling me that they thought ‘Happy’ was the single biggest ballad they’d come across in ten years, but that if Leona didn’t come over here and promote it, it was going to fall.”

However, Tedder also admitted that the impact of Lady GaGa – who has notched up five US top ten hits in the last 12 months – might have adversely affected the single’s chances.

“On top of that, America’s consumed with Lady GaGa and dance music right now, so it’s not the best time for ballads anyway”, he said. “When everything on the radio is blasting out at 120 bpm, a song like ‘Happy’ almost sounds out-of-place.”

For someone who writes only slow ballads, i’m not suprised he’s pointing the gun to artists who have comes out with fast-paced songs. But he really went overboard by saying this shat! To correct him, Leona Lewis did quite a number of performances in the US on the release week of her album. That’s what most artists do anyways! They almost never promote it when they drop a new single. With “Happy” only peaking around 30 plus on Billboard Hot 100, I guess he’s justifying his flop there.

After hearing ‘All The Right Moves‘, I was completely surprised about how it sounded. I immediately gave it a 4 out of 5 rating amidst of not thoroughly criticising the song. I was somehow disappointed with it after hearing them performing it live. The former single doesn’t deserve the proper release it is getting. And then suddenly, ‘Secrets’ a track from ‘Waking Up’ is getting a German proper single release. Apparently, the song was included in a German film titled ‘Zweiohrküken’. Hearing ‘Secrets’ is like reminiscing ‘Apologise’ and ‘Coming Home’ from ‘Dreaming Out Loud’, their debut LP that made a mark to my life since.

‘Secrets’ is as heavy as you can imagine as a Ryan Tedder production. Having said that, it doesn’t sound like a diva song that would associate it with Jordin, Leona etc. The song’s quite convincing and very emotional as with the cello undercurrents which are efficiently utilising its use in making the song as grand as it can be. This is what OneRepublic should be doing. It’s effortless, yet subtle and big as some of their hits were.

RATING: 5/5
RELEASED: October 30, 2009 (CD Single, Germany, Austria)

OneRepublic – Secrets