Gavin Degraw – Free

Releasedate: 03-04-2009; Label: Sony BMG
By: Sofie Bergen

The American Singer/Songwriter Gavin Degraw is mostly known by his hitsong “I Don’t Wanna Be”, “Chariot” and “Follow Through” These songs date back quite a while and it has been silent around him for a while. This mainly because his self titled second album was not such a big success as his debut. His third album is called “Free”.

As soon you start listening you realize that “Free” is not exactly an album filled with potential hit songs either. Did Gavin choose this path himself or was he just not capable of recreating a success like “Chariot”? Most of the songs of the album are minimalistic and calm. Back to basics, no more melodic sing-a-long songs. Only one song really comes close to the level of commercialism he had before and that one is “Dancing Shoes”. The question is if you are suppose to like this songs.
A pretty bad production did not do the album much good either. It feels like the unique elements of Gavin’s voice are not really coming forward because they are polished to a substance that just doesn’t have any impact. Hopefully, there will be some more power added when he will release anything as a single. We all have seen before how Gavin can make those songs get stuck in your head before, so we need a bit of the fire, the passion he had when writing those songs.
“Free” won’t even make it to one of my lounge parties as a background music as I don’t want my friends to fall asleep. Too bad.

Tracklist: 01. Indian Summer 02. Free 03. Stay 04. Mountains To Move Glass 05. Glass 06. Lover Be Strong 07. Dancing Shoes 08. Waterfall 09. Why Do The Men Stray

Links:
Gavin Degraw MySpace
Gavin Degraw Official