The Format
'Interventions and Lullabies'
On Elektra Records
Grade: C+With a group name as generic as "The Format" and a track named "First Single," you would think this band would compensate for their seeming blandness through some zesty tunes. You would think.
Instead of making some kind of quasi-ironic statement with a little interesting music, reaffirming the whole "don't judge a book by its cover" logic, The Format's debut album "Interventions and Lullabies" instead provides a form of pop that fuses the whiney factor of Emo with a steady Beatlesque beat - a fusion that is more "one hit wonder" than attention-grabbing.

Sam Means and Nate Ruess, both in their early 20s, make up this year-old pop duo. "First Single" hit the Arizona airwaves last year, becoming popular with local audiences and grabbing the attention of some big name labels. In the spring of 2002 they signed with Elektra Records, enlisting producer Walt Vincent (Pete Yorn) to help form this debut album.

I will give them some credit; A couple of songs were well worth listening to, namely the "First Single" and the ballad "On the Porch." It is just that I was hoping, given their name and aptly-named first single, that it would be something so good that it would speak for itself, thus justifying the simple "book-cover" syndrome. Yet I must admit it began to grow on me, in an "I-need-some-background-music" kind of way.

"First Single (Cause A Scene)," which launched the career of The Format, is upbeat angst. With periodic breaks of full-on hand clapping, it is reminiscent of "That Thing You Do." After a few listens, the song is actually catchy. The lyrics are simple, as they are in most of the album, but are hardly audible. "I just got to get myself over me/ and I hate what I've become."

"Wait Wait Wait" is the perfect example of the banality of the album, sounding far too similar to all the other songs. The whiny lyrics evoke Emo, but the dearth of any reflective lyrics and the addition of poppy drum beat and 80s guitar riffs create an awkward middle ground. This is where The Format gets lost, in the dangerous region of mediocrity.

"The Mess" could also be described as an Emo attempt - and it almost works as such. Thank goodness they decided to leave out the hand clapping on this track, because otherwise this song would be having an extreme identity crisis with only mediocre pop-Emo songs to counsel it. The chorus, with its fluctuating tone and intensity, is the best part of the song: "What a mess I make of my days/ and then there's you, you are a mess to be made." This mess works, but not within the pop genre where the band claims to settle.

All the best songs on the album are in fact those that don't seem to fit in with the majority. "On Your Porch" is a beautiful love ballad, the second-longest track on the album that without self-control could incite swaying and "awws" from listeners. Through the simplistic appeal of the "sitting-on-the-porch-talking-all-night" scenario, the romantic in all of us becomes vulnerable to the effects of this sweet tune: "I was on your porch last night/ We talked all night/ About everything you could imagine." The focus on light and intricate guitar strumming slows down the pace and a background shaking rhythm relaxes listeners through its association to the pitter-patter of rain.

The fourth track, "Tie the Rope," works in its pop attempt rather well until the moment when the explicit image of a man being hanged pops into your mind. The lyrics describe the depressing scene: "Just tie the rope/ Kick the chair/ Just leave me hanging there." And hand clapping even finds a home on this track, in between the chair kicking and rope tying of course. Enough said.

Overall, this is the kind of music you can forget is playing. Its great as background music, and it could definitely revolutionize the elevator music market, but I wouldn't invest too much money on buying the record. The tunes are catchy but mellow, and even the hand clapping isn't intense enough for me to clap along. The challenge presented by the label to try and "not to hum along" to this album is rather laughable. A bigger challenge would be finding a way to hum to this slightly awkward debut.