Weights & Wings

Album Review

Throughout the history of popular music, musicians have tried for commercial success by taking aim at the hearts of teenage girls. In essence, they have written and sung songs containing messages those girls wish they were receiving from the teenage boys surrounding them in high school, so the songs always have "I-you" lyrics, with the word "love" often in between. Matt Wertz is thus part of a long and noble pop tradition as he croons in his high tenor about how "Everything Will Be Alright," it "Feels So Right," it's "Gonna Be Good," and "Somebody's Gonna Love You." "I never said ‘I love you' to any girl before," he confides in "Easier Tonight," elsewhere declaring that this is happening "For the First Time," that he needs "Someone Like You," that he's "Running Back to You," and that "Nobody's You." Wertz often sounds like he formed his musical sensibility listening to early Eagles albums, and there are sometimes specific references to teen idols of the past. "Nobody's You," for example, is at times so similar to Rick Springfield's "Jessie's Girl" that you can almost sing that song to its tune. It's all sweet and earnest and sensitive, just like teenage girls think they want teenage boys to be, though they usually aren't. That's why pop singers like Matt Wertz are needed, and with any luck he'll have his moment of vicariously answering the needs of the audience he seeks and selling some downloads by doing so.