A little bit of gratitude

Posted on 16 February 2006 | 1 Comment

Filed Under: Just Plain Rock

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Kevin from So Much Silence strangely posted about Jonah Matranga today. He noted that Matranga’s latest project Gratitude (sadly) recently called it quits and that Jonah is releasing a CD/DVD entitled There’s A Lot In Here next week on Equal Vision Records.

While Kevin stated that he thought that Gratitude was “an ill-fated project from the get-go,” and a “hasty attempt to spin out a radio hit,” I feel otherwise. Yes, the music of Gratitude is glossier than anything Jonah has done before, but the songs are all him. Even though I love Far and Onelinedrawing, Gratitude (to me at least) seems like the first project where Jonah’s voice seems perfectly suited for the music behind it. His best fit. I look at Jonah’s track record and have no doubt that he is always making the music he wants to and just looking for a quick “radio hit.”

The italicized text below is a repost of something I wrote last August.

You may or may not know Jonah Matranga from his previous work. he fronted the amazing band Far who released their masterpiece Water & Solutions in 1998. You may also know him as Onelinedrawing or the frontman for the short-lived New End Original. His latest group, however, is called Gratitude. They recently released their self-titled debut on Atlantic Records, but I am a bit confused about it.

Gratitude plays no-frills pop-rock with a hint of the punk attitude you’d expect from Jonah. I mean, these guys should be all over MTV and so-called “modern rock” radio but for some reason I can’t figure out they aren’t. Maybe they didn’t participate in the big payola scandal, but they are on a major label and play catchy-as-fuck rock music that would be right at home blasting over the airwaves on a hot summer day.

I know that being on a major is not an automatic guarantee of success even with enormous talent (Jawbreaker, Smoking Popes, Texas Is The Reason, etc…), but this band should be huge. It’s a perfect example of everything that is wrong with the music industry as a whole. The people that run major labels are after one thing and one thing only. Profit. They don’t call it the music “business” for nothing. The clueless fuckers in suits who run major labels basically peddle mostly substandard, unoriginal, and derivative products to many people who don’t have access to (or know about) anything else. The majority of them don’t care about the artists or about the “art” that is being made.

For every Fall Out Boy that has a little success, there are dozens of bands like Gratitude that, despite their talent and skill, will continue to struggle in obscurity.

MP3 | Gratitude – Feel Alright ST
MP3 | Gratitude – Sadie ST
MP3 | Gratitude – Sadie (Acoustic) Drive Away CD Single

Comments

1 Kevin - 1021 days ago I didn't mean to be overly harsh of Gratitude (and especially of Jonah). I do like "Feel Alright" and "This is the Best Part" (especially his throaty yelling at the end on this track).

It's entirely possible that I like Far TOO much, thus not leaving much room for error for Gratitude in my mind. As for the songs, I'm pretty sure Jonah and Mark Weinberg (guitarist) split a majority of the writing, or at least Weinberg wrote much of the music.

I will say -- at the risk of sounding superficial -- some of the liner note photos and press shots turned me off: the whole dramatic, standing-on-the-beach thing.

I also wonder why the group split. Record label (Atlantic) issue? "Creative differences"?

I dunno, we may have to agree to disagree! I'm just glad there's another Jonah fan blogging out there.