Jonathan Thulin- The White Room Album Review

Radio Ready: Bombs Away, The Dead Come to Life, Masquerade, Coat of Arms, I Am Nothing

iPod Picks: Coat of Arms, Bombs Away, Masquerade, Peeta, The Dead Come to Life, Love/War, Graveyard

The Background
Jonathan Thulin first crossed my path about a year ago when he released an imagery driven, Lady Gaga-esque music video for his powerful single "Babylon".  New Release Tuesday did a big feature on the video and it soon became the most viewed Christian Music Video on the social media site.  I was a bit confused and creeped out by the video but I fell in love with the song itself and its message.  While it was released nearly two years ago, its probably the most played song on my iPod for 2012.  I went ahead and purchased the parent album to "Babylon" which was cleverly titled The Anatomy of a Heartflow and while none of the songs lived up to the lyrical creativity or musical power of "Babylon", what I did find was one of my favorite voices to appear in CCM in years.  Seriously, this guy's voice is like cream and butter.  A true gift that needs to be heard.  While the majority of Heartflow featured passionate and worshipful  American Idol-worthy ballads (without the cheesy lyrics) Thulin also recently joined the popular CCM dance-pop group Press Play (pretty much CCM's answer to Black Eyed Peas) who mainly perform dance and hip hop music; so I was very interested to see how he would balance the two styles on his new release, The White Room.

The Review
The White Room takes Jonathan Thulin beyond the AI balladry of his debut and showcases a serious and relevant artist with songs that could as easily be heard on mainstream Pop radio and push CCM beyond its traditional boundaries.  The first half of The White Room is a template in making good pop music.  The smashing, "Bad Romance" influenced, opener "Masquerade" and the militant "Coat of Arms" (which sounds like a dubstep mash up of OneRepublic's "All The Right Moves" and Jordin Sparks' "Battlefield" with a dash of Britney Spears' "Toxic" thrown in for good measure) are exactly the type of music CCM needs right now.   Three amazing singers make guest appearances on this record: Charmaine on preview single "The Dead Come to Life", Rachael Lampa on the explosive album highlight "Bombs Away", and new artist Elden on intimate and understated "Soon".  Jonathan proves he can hold his own against any formidable vocalist (especially on "Bombs Away") while blending with the women as if they'd been singing together for years.  If Press Play doesn't work out for Thulin, he should seriously consider forming a vocal supergroup with Charmaine and Lampa.

Other highlights on the first half of the record include "Graveyard" (a song that could become a major hit for Kelly Clarkson if she could get ahold of it) and the electronic ballad "Love/War", which in my opinion should have been the title of the album as the idea of love and war colliding is referenced throughout.  Things really slow down in the second half of the album, however, as ballad follows slower ballad in what seems to be a competition for which song could best end the album. Oddly enough, the album actually closes with the whimsical and upbeat "Peeta" (apparently inspired by the character from The Hunger Games).  While each individual ballad is unique and powerful in its own right, it is a jarring change for the epic nature of the first half of The White Room and I found myself at times being tempted to skip through tracks 7-9 (especially the anticlimactic "Tourches" which would have worked better if followed by an upbeat song).  A little more time in the studio to create one or two more upbeat songs a la "Coat of Arms" or "Masquerade" would have been advisable.

In the end, like Britt Nicole, Group 1 Crew and TobyMac, Jonathan Thulin is a rare CCM artist who understands the importance of relevant pop music in CCM and has the chops to make it happen.  Here's to hoping others catch on to the genius that is Jonathan Thulin!