At some point in time, musicians decide they want to cut the album they’ve always wanted to record. In short, they want to sing to please themselves, rather than their fans. If anyone has earned the right to do that, it would be Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Sometimes it’s something that everyone else also wants to listen to and sometimes it’s not. Unfortunately, Mojo falls into the “not” category.
When I first heard the self-titled debut from the indie duo Broken Bells, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. Sure, the opening cut and hit single, “The High Road,” has that unyielding chorus that just grabs you—along with that contemporary but still nostalgic Moody Blues feel. But I wondered whether that song would be representative of the entire CD, or if the synthesized music would grow old after a while.
