Album Review: Coco by Colbie Caillat

Photo from Wikipedia

Words by: Nahson Wren

I've been listening to Colbie Caillat's music for about as long as it's been largely publicized, but just recently listened to her debut album in its entirety.  Its lyrics summarize a story of a young woman, expressing her feelings of romance and love.  It explains her emotional ups and downs and how she dealt with them.

It starts off with the song "Oxygen", which sets up the story for why her hopes and feelings for a relationship came to be.  She explains how she expressed herself and the love that she had as an admirer.  She beckons for that love to become a reality.  That message is continual throughout the next few songs as well.
   
She is elated by the thought of them being together.  As time passes, it becomes emotionally intoxicating when things seem to be going as she had hoped.  It is described as a bubbly feeling, in that song that many of you may have heard.  There is a hope that her feelings will show in a way that may make it noticeably obvious, so that he will know as well.
   
By the time the album gets to "Realize", she is sure of her feelings and is hoping that he has become sure of those same feelings.  Colbie saw their love as something that was meant to bring them together.  She realized that their relationship would work perfectly, if only they were in agreement.  Once again, it is like she calls attention to those feelings that she is expressing, in the hopes that he will show signals of what she had hoped for. 
   
"Battle" is their final shot of trying to put their relationship together in the way that Colbie had hoped.  It became a turning point for her, showing that she could have been alone in her feelings throughout.  She gives him the ultimatum, although it may not have even been known by him.
   
The shift in tonality and her expressed feelings become more hopeful in "Tailor Made".  Although her former love has seemingly been for naught, she had hope that those feelings may have just been misplaced.  It is a message that she sings to herself and anyone that may be feeling that same way that she did.  That message resonates throughout.
   
As the album wraps up, she sings of how she still has hope.  She even feels oppressed in a way that keeps her from finding that love and exemplifying it in her way.
   
Overall, I've constantly gone back to this album upon first listen.  It encapsulates the feelings of romantic love in a multitude of ways.  It could also be somewhat freeing for someone with those feelings to listen to.  This sheds light on just another way to say "I'm in love with the Coco".

Some of my favorite songs:

Oxygen - This begins the album with a summary of the rest of what is to come.  He inspired her hope for her dreams.  She feels the need to express the feelings that leave her short of breath.  Her need for oxygen explains how she urges to show why it would be good for them to be together.  She hopes to reciprocate the feelings that she has felt, because of him.  The lack of breath keeps her from putting it all together in the way that she hopes to.

The Little Things - The previous song explains much of what she feels in this song.  "The Little Things" leave her in a state of bliss, but it is almost like it is isolating her.  That isolation causes her to seek a way to find out if he feels the same way that she does.  It "ain't just a thing that you give up".  Without an explanation of his feelings as well, she is left without a way to fully express herself.  

Battle - The final call for him to let her know if he also loves her has come.  Although he may not even know of the trial, he is being put to the test.  She has brought their love to an ultimatum, so when he fails, she gives up.  Throughout that entire time, she hoped for something that has now been given up on.  Albeit how difficult, the stress of the continual belief in something that had yet to be actualized was too much on her psyche.