Josh Groban, pre-release of "Stages" -- reactions to singles and videos

I'm really enjoying the three singles that I've gotten so far from Josh's new album, stages.  He said that this new producer was strong at getting good singing out of him, and he's right -- tho there's still a slightly strained sound in "Le Temps des Cathédrales."

It's a good thing that he's gone back to material -- or the type of material -- that he loved as a child.  There's something about singing songs many, many times that makes them better.  I've found this on my own little YouTube channel where my biggest "hit" is the song that I sang several thousand times as a lullaby to my younger son.  Somehow singing it so many times did something to the way I sing it, I believe.

I suspect that this is also what made "Noël" such an enduring hit for Josh -- that it contained songs he had been singing since childhood.  At the time, he expressed feeling guilty that that album was so easy to record, but that follows naturally from singing material with which he was already so very familiar.

I'm hoping that this latest album is going to be popular for the same reason that "Noël" was -- internalizing songs since childhood makes one sing them better.

But, as those of you who read this blog know, I don't write unless I have something to complain about -- something that disturbs me.

This time it's the videos.

The first one with this album, "What I did for Love," has too many cuts.

This idea that video material should be full of cuts -- changes of camera angle -- is getting absurd.

Medical studies are showing that such frequent cuts are damaging to the attention span of children.  There was one study that indicated that children who watched Sesame Street were actually worse readers than those who did not.  There were likely two reasons for this. First, the frequent cuts damaged the attention span necessary for reading.  Second, watching video material damages kids' ability to generate their own mental images while reading, which makes their reading less effective.

But these constant cuts can't be good for adults either.  I personally cannot watch this video.  It's just nerve wracking.

The "Pure Imagination" video is even worse.  There are moving sub-images and often things are blurred. This is supposed to create a sense of imagination, I suppose, but it makes me queasy -- motion sick -- a nightmare -- or delirium.  Can't stand it.

Flashy video editing has just gone overboard in general -- and these videos typify that.

I thought Chris Groban did a really superb video for Josh for "Just Walk Away."  I wish they would have him do more videos.

Nits:

Just a slight nit with the pronunciation in the French song: the "u" is fairly often wrong.

Also, being conscious of European politics, I predict that it's going to be irritating to Germans that Josh sings in several European languages, but not German.  The TV talk show hosts have remarked on this omission when he's gone there before.  Germany is probably the wealthiest country (gross, not per capita) in the EU and certainly the most populous.  This is going to alienate German fans.

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Addendum 4/6/15:

Now we're going through this cycle of promo videos for the album.  They seem rather slick and vacuous to me.  I miss his vlogs.  They weren't as slick, but they seemed more real.