I Give Up, I Give In, I Let Go, Let’s Begin

Colbie Caillat broke onto the scene two years ago with songs so sugary and saccharine, had she had been five years younger you’d expect them to come alone with a Disney Channel show. Not that there was anything wrong with that because songs off of Coco became quintessential mellow California sound from a female perspective for the new millennium. But if there was a down side to her debut was that it was too mellow.

For the recording of her second album Breakthrough, Caillat traded one beach for another, going from California to Hawaii. From the first single Fallin’ for You, that she had an extra bounce in step on the islands as it was her most upbeat, and better than any song from Coco. And that sediment is transferred to some other songs on Breakthrough such as Begin Again, You Got Me, and Running Around.

But even though I Don’t has the defiant title, the song about not accepting that a friend isn’t more. And the rest of the album pretty much sound like outtakes from Coco. There is something to say her most adventurous songs to date the duets Breathe with Taylor Swift on Swift’s Fearless (Caillat’s song Fearless on Breakthrough is completely different for Swift’s title track) and Lucky with Jason Mraz. But where Breakthrough can get repetitive, especially if you grab the seventeen song deluxe version, the songs individually are still as stronger than her debut and much like those songs, they would be better listened to if you download them to your computer and listen on shuffle and the songs would occasionally come and put a smile on your face before going onto a different artist.

Song to Download – Running Around

Breakthrough gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.