Massachusetts band Condition Baker’s new single, “One Thing“, recalls the sounds of Green Day and the Offspring. Any Gen X-er who hears it won’t have a hard time picturing Jay and Silent Bob hanging out in front of the QuickStop as a stream of questionable characters make their way in and out. The question is, will the song resonate with Gens Y and Z?
With a strong beat, a simple hook and a relatable theme of missing simpler times while grinding one’s way through a mundane existence, “One Thing” gets a lot done in under three minutes. There are some things that it could do better, though. Potentially interesting lyrical seeds (“Everyone’s selfishly amused”; “I’m just laughing at the seams” aren’t fleshed out, instead being left to languish among more familiar ideas: “Time goes on”; “Working 9 to 5/this place sucks”, etc. Musically the song is almost a victim of its own economy. A bridge could have added musical variety while giving an opportunity to develop the lyrical ideas. A key change on the solo could have created unpredictability without over-complicating the song. Speaking of keys, “One Thing” might have been better sung in a slightly higher key, one that would have helped the hook stand out more; it also would have made the vocals on the verses clearer. Granted, this would have cost some of the heavy guitar sound, but with an average of 60,000 tracks being uploaded to Spotify on a daily basis, hooks are more important than ever.
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