Pop hasn’t changed in the last fifty years quite as much as some people might think it has – in all reality, it’s essentially the same structural concept that it was a half-century ago in more ways than one. Take Rob Alexander’s new single “This Hollywood Road;” while the track is sporting a sophisticated swing that tethers its aesthetic to a modern pop beat, there’s nothing about the construction of the hook that steps outside of traditional, Beatles-style pop/rock territory. The cosmetics borrow a bit from classic rock, but in its totality, “This Hollywood Road” is a sweet extension of the past perfectly stylized for the contemporary music fan.
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There’s definitely an old school rock n’ roll vibe to the rhythm in this single, but I would stop well short of calling the groove a throwback to the days of disco and bell-bottom jeans. The bassline is the most refined element here – outside of the vocal, of course – and it cushions the percussion from developing too much of a throttling intensity as we get into the heavier harmony in the chorus. This keeps the melody relatively glossy while leaving some space for Alexander to introduce some edge behind the microphone (an opportunity he doesn’t squander, I might add).
I really like the warmth of the lead vocal here, and I don’t believe you have to be a professional music critic to recognize its natural tonality, especially when compared side by side with some of the more obviously synthetic content scoring big numbers on the charts as of late. Alexander’s voice is lending an authenticity to the neon grooving in the backdrop that you just can’t fake – especially within the realm of modern pop music – and this alone saves “This Hollywood Road” from ever sounding disingenuous to the audience and critics alike.
Normally I would prefer a little more kick in the percussion for a track as grand in style as this one is, but I can also understand and even appreciate what Rob Alexander was trying to achieve with this incarnation of the song instead. The first three songs he released off of Being Myself had a full-scale grandiosity, each in their own way, that this single comes close to replicating, but by including a conservative component in the cornerstone of the beat, I suppose we get something entirely different (by the numbers) in this single than we do in the trio that preceded it.
After years of private cultivation – when his demanding work schedule as a physician would allow it, mind you – Rob Alexander is at last sounding like the boss that many of us always believed him to be in the brand new single “This Hollywood Road.” One of my favorite songs off of Being Myself, “This Hollywood Road” is a superior way to get into the swing of contemporary pop without abandoning an enthusiasm for the elemental influences that made the genre so enticingly sexy in the first place. It gets a big thumbs up from me, and I think my fellow critics are likely to share my sentiments.
Jodi Marxbury