This collection of short stories is my first venture into writing for

SURVEY

Musicology Anthology  (13+) An annual challenge to write a short story collection based on an album! Runs April-June. #1377819 by Jeff

Oh My My is OneRepublic's fourth studio album, released in 2016. 1R is headed up by lead singer Ryan Tedder, a multi-talented and incredibly busy guy who has written and produced songs for every popular singer you could possibly name in the past twenty years, besides bringing his own band to a position of unforgettable fame, which climaxed in 2013-14 with the release of hit single Counting Stars.

Oh My My was not particularly popular or chart-topping, and it was not promoted by the band at all because Ryan suffered a nervous breakdown due to sheer overwork. He put a stop to all his musical activities as soon as the album dropped and took about a year off to recover. He recovered fully, plunged right back into doing what he loves most, and hasn't quit since.

The funny thing about this album is, though it was not promoted or toured and hardly made a ripple on pop radio, I have personally encountered no less than nine songs from it on public playlists over the years, anywhere from McDonald's to Wendy's to JoAnn Fabrics. Not merely the four singles, but also five deep cuts, the equivalent of which one would not normally find in casual settings. I theorize that since it wasn't a big hit, perhaps 1R "leased out" the songs on it to a Muzak type of company to make the most out of the album.

Artistically speaking, I love Oh My My; each track is unusual and remarkable, from the heartfelt sincerity of Let's Hurt Tonight (featured in the movie Collateral Beauty) to the funky, mysterious, post-apocalyptic metaphor of NbHD, which was written for the Middle East refugee crisis; to the charming poetry of Colors; to the moody and eerily prophetic A.I. Ryan tells us the album has a global flavor, because many of the songs were written and recorded while on tour, and he absorbed different local styles of music.

I will be using the deluxe international version, which contains eighteen unique songs as well as an acoustic version of Heaven and a string version of Better, which I won't be writing stories for since they're basically duplicates.

I shall try my best to do justice to this little-known album, which contains some of my favorite 1R tracks. Lyrics and a YouTube video will be included in a dropnote in each story.