Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By OK GO, Paracadute Records 2020.
During the pandemic I’ve been encouraging you to compile a ‘mixed tape’ of songs as a memento, a surviving the pandemic soundtrack.
With All Together Now you don’t only get a very good addition to the tape but you’re also helping health professionals provide care.
As a band OK GO has been around for a long time.
The line-up consists of lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash, bassist Tim Nordwind, drummer Dan Kouopka, and Andy Ross on guitar and keyboards.
They formed way back in 1998 in Chicago and are now based in Los Angeles.
OK GO has become famous for their unusually creative and quirky music videos.
One of the incredible things is that, considering their complexity, they are often filmed in one take.
In 2007 they won the Best Music Video Grammy Award for their single Here It Goes Again and their videos have been watched so often that the band has become better known for their clips than the music.
However, as good as their videos are, they wouldn’t have achieved their success based on visuals alone.
They’d still be relatively unknown if those clips weren’t tied to great songs.
OK GO is a fantastic pop band and All Together Now presents them at their best.
The song was recorded in isolation in their living rooms and was inspired by the nightly cheers and hand clapping for frontline workers that has occurred in Los Angeles and in many cities around the world, and also by an article published in The Guardian by Rebecca Soinit.
OK GO singer Damian Kulash, and his wife, both contracted coronavirus and the impact on their health (especially his wife’s) and their painfully slow recoveries were far scarier than either anticipated.
So much for the claim by some that COVID-19 is just another flu.
So, here’s a song written by Damian about his wife’s battle with the disease, what could be more appropriate to add to the tape?
Profits from the downloads of the single at the band’s website will be donated to Partners in Health, an organisation that brings healthcare to people who can’t afford to access it.
Download available here: okgo.net
