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This week’s pick is definitely something I’ve been looping a lot in my playlist lately. One Republic’s “All the Right Moves” – has a “Phantom-esque” theme to it – I think I’ve watched this video like 10x already!

One Republic is not an unheard of band anymore (thanks to “Apologize”) and this track comes out of their sophomore album (do I speak like an American now?) released last Nov (2009). I gotta say – One Republic is on my top 3 favorite bands (you can guess what the other 2 are) and primarily because of Ryan Tedder (their front man), who is probably my favorite artist. He’s definitely a talented performer (can sing and plays multiple instruments, piano being one of them), but I think I like him most because of his songwriting and producing background – he writes One Republic’s songs, but moreover he pens a number of chart toppers for MANY other artists (Beyonce, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Leona Lewis, to name a few). He definitely has an identifiable style in his arrangements, which I probably appreciate the most. For example – listen to the arrangement for “All the Right Moves” above – the instrumental at 2:40, then the piano/vocal solo at 2:53, then the double snare to drums/vocal at 3:06, then the cutout “Yeah, we’re going down” at 3:18… ah so creative!

Ryan Tedder’s bio is very inspiring as well – a story of tenacity. He was an intern at Dreamworks singing demo tracks, and was soon offered a publishing deal, but he wanted to be an artist (more than just background producing work). So at age 21, he entered some MTV hosted singer-songwriter competition ran by Lance Bass (N’Sync), and he ended up winning the competition. As a winner, he’s supposed to get a contract with a recording label, but this did not materialize as Lance Bass’ company folded soon after the competition – Setback #1. After that, he continued to work behind the scenes doing production work for other artists, apparently working with Timbaland from 2002 to 2004.

2002, he formed One Republic with his high school buddy, and at that point he had the choice of being a producer, or going to be an artist. “I was offered two publishing deals within two months of being in Nashville…I could have just written songs and lived a carefree life, but I knew that I had to be an artist. I wanted to form a rock band and create my own sound.” And then Setback #2: “The band had previously been signed to Columbia Records, and their album was due to be released in 2006, but this did not occur. Tedder explained, “Crap happened. People got fired. Labels merged and politics abounded”.[24] Subsequently, the band was released from their deal with Columbia, and they were signed by Timbaland in the summer of 2006 becoming the first rock band to be signed to Mosley Music Group.”

Hehe too bad he isn’t an outspoken Christian (not sure if he is one), or else another ++! But he was brought up by an extended family of missionaries and pastors, so maybe, who knows!