Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 03/21/2006
It's easy to see why
Teddy Geiger was pegged for a key role in
CBS' music industry prime time drama
Love Monkey -- he's a good-looking, tuneful, and earnest kid, an eminently marketable 17 year old who doesn't seem like an outright prefabricated sell-out. Too bad that the show was pulled from the air after just a few airings in early 2006, well over a month before
Geiger's debut,
Underage Thinking, hit stores; he didn't get any boost out of the show, nor did the show receive any momentum from the record. That might mean
Underage Thinking won't receive the attention it deserves, which is too bad, since it's a good debut, a slick, sincere collection of surging
pop and sweet
ballads that are enhanced considerably by
Geiger's puppy-dog charm. And he needs that charm, since it's the thing that keeps
Underage Thinking out of the realm of adult
pop, which it most assuredly is on its surfaces, which are gilded with acoustic guitars, overdubbed harmonies, near-invisible layers of synths, diluted drum loops, and other big-budget production tricks that make the album radio-ready even if it gives
Geiger a tad too much maturity for his own good. Fortunately, he has enough charisma and skill to make the gloss seem heartfelt, even when it follows radio-ready formula to a T. That formula and gloss may make
Underage Thinking a little too easy to swallow upon the first listen, but like the best adult
pop, which this certainly is, the songs show their individual strengths upon repeated plays. After a few spins, of either the album as a whole or of individual singles like
"For You I Will (Confidence)," the affectations of the polished production fade away,
Geiger's whispery voice starts to seem sincerely soulful, and the music feels warm, comfortable, and, above all, memorable. This is unabashedly mainstream music, not cool in the slightest, but the great absence of well-executed, tuneful adult-oriented
pop/rock in 2006 makes
Underage Thinking all the more appealing.
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide
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