Appropriately titled “WTF?,” the lead song on OK Go’s much anticipated third album accurately labels the range of perplexities that make up Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Unlike their first two albums, the Chicago eccentrics have abandoned their audibly artistic brand of music for a more visual approach.
Naming their album after the 1876 novel, The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Colour of the Sky by General A.J. Pleasonton, OK Go creatively adapts its “theory that blue light cures all ills” onto their album’s liner notes in both a technical and technicolour fashion. However, substituting memorable hooks, catchy lyrics and dance-crazed beats for cramped, yet repetitive lyrics, distant echoes of vocals and musical interludes full of uninspired metallic clamor, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky falls flat against OK Go’s previous albums’ hits.
To the average listener, lyrics to songs like “WTF?” are lost amongst the many instrumental adjustments simultaneously occuring. Although OK Go deserves definite props for their artistic depth, such brilliance is not reflected in their music, sadly leaving their effort lost.