Hooked, but It’s OK! Andy Grammer’s “Keep Your Head Up”

This is an interactive video for “Keep Your Head Up” by singer-songwriter and fellow Binghamton University alumn Andy Grammer. (I’m not sure what Grammer studied and SUNY Binghamton, but according to this bio he was there two years active in the theater program. I did my PhD there.) At various points in the video you will have an opportunity to change the scenario by selecting options. And if you do the whole thing again, you’ll get different choices.

This guy knows how to load a song with melodic hooks and they do their job. The song snagged in the netting of my muddled brain the first time I heard it and it’s been stuck there since. Usually at least one or two songs from the beginning of summer crop has such a hook, but usually it drives me crazy. That’s because I usually don’t even like the song, but the hook is effective, so it snags and won’t pull lose. And because the artists is often backed by the full marketing budget of a giant record label, the single is ubiquitous. You hear it on the radio, in the mall, in your favorite tv shows and movies, over television commercials, as a Starbucks Download of the Week, etc. The artists appears on daytime and late night talk shows, as a guest performer or mentor on reality competition shows, in cameos on episodic television, on radio talk shows, in public service announcements… So every time the song fades from memory, its planted again. I’ll find myself singing it in the car, the shower, on the street, deliberately preventing myself from learning the whole thing, annoyed at the banality of the lyrics, the derivative nature of the music, or some other aspect of the song.


Photo from "Andy Grammer: The Next BIG Thing and IndyConcerts got to Interview Him!"

This song, on the other hand, came out a couple of months ago, and just like all the rest of songs like this, the loop started with the chorus.

But you gotta keep your head up, oh,
And you can let your hair down, eh.
you gotta keep your head up, oh,
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It not stopped, yet I’m not the least bit tired of it. And now that I’ve discovered this video, it’s likely to remain even longer. In fact, I think I know all the words. The song has worked it’s way into my consciousness, like really good pop songs do.

It’s on a self-titled EP with 3 other similarly upbeat, uptempo, lyrically witty songs about love and life. Andy sings them with an amazing sense of rhythmic pacing, rap-like, but melodic and tonally rich. He’s also got a crack band on them. I could go on, but let’s keep this short.

An album releases in just a few weeks, so I’ll save a more substantive review for that. Until then, just click here and check out the EP or check him out on the road. He’s touring right now, due to play here in Boston June 8. I don’t know if I’ll catch the show, as I may have to be out of town, but if I am and tickets are available, you’ll definitely see me there!

Billboard Magazine named him an Artist to Watch in 2011 and it looks like they were right!