OneRepublic: one of my new favorite bands

I love music. Unfortunately, I don’t get to listen to the radio very often. So when I discover new music, it is usually months or even years after the music has been released. This was the case with my discovery of the band, OneRepublic. I came across their songs one day while surfing YouTube and I enjoyed their sound. Little did I know that the band has been around for a while.

OneRepublic is an American pop rock band formed in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 2002 by friends Ryan Tedder and Zach Filkins. The two were high school friends as seniors at Colorado Springs Christian High School. They would be joined by Drew Brown, Eddie Fisher, and Brent Kutzle. The band received commercial success as an unsigned act on Myspace and in 2007, their debut album, Dreaming Out Loud, was released. The songs “Apologize” and “Stop and Stare” were hits and the band released their second album, Waking Up, in 2009. This albums released even more hits, such as “All the Right Moves,” “Secrets,” “Marchin On,” and “Good Life.” In 2013, OneRepublic released their third album, Native, which is off to a good start, producing numerous hits, such as “Counting Stars,” “I Lived” and most recently, “Love Runs Out.”

The band counts many musical influences such as Fiona Apple, Peter Gabriel and most heavily The Beatles and U2. One Republic has expressed that they wish to move listeners the way U2 does with their music and their stage productions. I think the band is off to a good start. The band members will learn any instrument which will help enhance their songs. They play the standard guitars, pianos, keyboards and tambourine. However, they also play unique instruments which I’ve never heard of before. First, the glockenspiel is a percussion instrument which is similar to a xylophone except it has tuned steel plates than wood. Second, the marimba is a percussion instrument that consists of wooden bars with are stuck with a mallet. And finally, the cajon, a Peruvian six-sided box percussion drum.

While I love many of their songs, my favorite is “Counting Stars.” In an interview, Ryan Fedder explained that he wrote the song about the financial problems he and his wife had when they were first married. He explained that the song was about the worry and the stress about wondering how to pay rent and other bills. The open verse is what speaks to me the most: “Lately I been, I been losing sleep/Dreaming ‘bout the things that we could be/But baby, I been, I been prayin’ hard/Said no more counting dollars/We’ll be counting stars/Yeah, we’ll be counting stars.” Anyone who has had financial issues can relate to the late night and sleepless nights worrying about money. I came across this song when my husband and I were in a financial bind and I knew that one day we would fix it and this upbeat song helped boost myself to say yes, we’ll get through this.

If you haven’t heard OneRepublic’s music, I highly recommend it. Their songs are fun, dance worthy as well as emotional and inspirational.