One Republic (Polydor)
As the late, great British comic Peter Cook once famously said of David Frost, One Republic have risen without trace.
The group sold two million copies of their debut album, racking up unavoidable top-five UK singles in the process.
Singer Ryan Tedder added more zeroes to his royalties by co-writing and producing Leona Lewis’s Bleeding Love.
And yet the band could walk into any bar in London and go unrecognised. You can’t help but suspect the record company are delighted with such anonymity.
As with the band’s debut, much of Waking Up seems designed to be dropped into whatever is this season’s big US teen TV drama.
Passing over the cack-handed rap of Everybody Loves Me and booming All The Right Moves, the likes of Fear and the sub-Keane balladry of All This Time are carefully heartfelt, painfully sincere and resolutely anti-charismatic.
If they sound familiar, that’s the general idea. Give ’em time and they’ll sink without trace, too.
WILL FULFORD-JONES
