It's Pop. No, It's Classical. No, It's Opera.
Peoria Journal Star
February 24, 2005
With a musical style that bounds across both the genres of classical music and pop, writers and fans have had to use considerable imagination to come up with terms to describe the music of Josh Groban. (Opera crossover and classical crossover are a few recent attempts.) Groban himself prefers to dodge questions about labeling his sound and says there really are only two basic categories for his music.

"I think that people have kind of been in two categories with my music in the last few years," he said. "They either get it or they just don't get it.

"Music is such a universal language, it shouldn't be classified so narrowly," Groban said, noting that he doesn't want to fit into any single musical mold. "It's nice to know that people are going out and buying the albums to listen to them from beginning to end. I think for the rest of my career, it will be somewhat difficult to classify, but that's not going to change my course at all."

So perhaps Groban, who comes to Peoria for a concert at 8 p.m. on Wednesday at the Peoria Civic Center, prefers to let his music speak for itself. And labels aside, there are a few ways to describe his sound. He sings lushly orchestrated, sweeping ballads that straddle the line between pop and classical - although Groban himself emphasizes that he considers himself a pop singer.

Even though many of his songs are sung in Italian or French, one doesn't need to understand the exact lyrics to know Groban specializes in dramatic romantic material that has clearly connected with his mostly female audience. And yes, Groban, though only 23, has an impressive vocal range. His supple high baritone effortlessly navigates between the delicate moments and full-bodied crescendos that typify his material.

It's also clear that Groban has touched a nerve with record buyers. His 2001 self-titled debut album has topped four million in sales. His second studio CD, the 2003 release, "Closer," has matched that total and remains on the "Billboard" pop chart after more than 60 weeks. His current tour, which coincides with the recent release of a concert DVD/CD, "Live At The Greek," promises to draw nearly 800,000 by the time it wraps up this spring.

And on Sunday, Groban will be in Hollywood for the 77th annual Academy Awards. There, he is scheduled to team with fellow superstar singer Beyonce for a performance of the Oscar-nominated tune "Believe," which Groban recorded for the soundtrack to the animated movie "The Polar Express."

So how did Groban become such a phenomenon so quickly? The story begins when he was 17 and a student at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. His teacher at the time was friends with multi-Grammy-winning producer David Foster, who was scouting for a singer to perform "All I Ask of You" (from "The Phantom of the Opera") at an event he was coordinating. Groban's audition tape caught Foster's attention and soon the producer took Groban under his wing and put him on the fast track to his recording career.

"I think that you can only get so far, I think, sometimes without that mentor and without that person helping to lead the way, and David was that person," Groban said. "Without David, none of this would be happening."

After signing with Warner Bros. Records, Foster took the helm as producer on Groban's 2001 debut CD and also on the bulk of "Closer." And while Foster was obviously involved in everything from bringing in musicians to overseeing the actual recording, Groban was quick to say that he, not Foster, determined the creative direction of his records.

"I think that the nice thing was that David did not have any kind of mentality of 'Here's how we're going to make his album,'" Groban said. "When people buy the album, they're buying a David Foster-produced Josh Groban album. It's the melding of two minds and not just the voice of someone else's idea."

It didn't take long for Groban to begin attracting a large audience. Following the release of his first CD, Groban gained exposure largely through television, with appearances on the "Rosie O'Donnell" show, a part in the 2001 season finale of "Ally McBeal" leading up to a featured segment on "20/20," multiple appearances on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" and finally a 2002 PBS concert special that was released on DVD that same year.

Groban points to the "20/20" segment and his first "Oprah Winfrey" appearance as the major catalysts behind a career that shows no signs of losing its momentum.

"I think that those were the two biggies," he said. "I felt like I had done a lot of things, but the public hadn't really connected the dots yet, and '20/20' connected the dots. That was the show that aired that said 'You've seen him here, here and here. Here's where you can buy his album.' It was like a lightbulb went off, and the next week in 'Billboard' I jumped about 120 spaces. Then after 'Oprah,' forget about it. Those two things were kind of the one-two punch."

A "Closer" look
Though his commercial success is undeniable, getting Groban to define his music or reveal how he has grown as an artist over the course of his two studio CDs proved to be an elusive task during a recent phone interview.

In his bio for "Closer," Groban noted that the album took him a "giant step closer to who I really am and what my music is all about."

Asked to elaborate on exactly how the second album more fully showed what he is about musically, Groban touched on a few facets of the record (such as the vocal complexity of the music and co-writing three tunes on "Closer"), but didn't exactly confront the issue of how the CD more closely reflected his musical interests, goals and intentions.

"Having had a successful first album, the fear is always there of two things," Groban said. "Don't go too far left of center and also don't do the same album. So it was one of those things where I wanted to show growth more than anything. Vocally I wanted to find music that was a little bit more challenging. It had been a couple of years since I recorded the first album and I wanted to show some different styles of songs vocally.

"I wanted to do some co-writing, which was extremely important to me. I was a little bit hesitant on the first album just because I had so many incredible writers around me all the time, as I did on the second album. But I wanted to break down that wall a little bit and do some writing. It's always a thrill to do that. I knew that I was going to tour with this album. I knew this was an album I was going to go on the road with. I also wanted to put some music on there that was a little more live friendly and energy friendly."

Groban's response to how "Closer" revealed more about who is he as a person and as an artist proved to be, like his musical style, somewhat vague.

"I think the first time, I think that I poured my heart and soul into that album. I did the same thing on the second one," Groban said. "With both albums, when I was finished with them, I really kind of said to myself this is everything I have to offer. This is everything I'm feeling now. And you know, you change and you still feel the same way, but you feel new things.

"I think the album that you make is really at the mercy of what you're feeling at that time period in your life and what you want to express at that time period in your life. It becomes kind of a record, no pun intended, of what it is you want to say at that time. And both albums fully expressed everything I wanted to say, whether I wrote it or not."

Tickets are $30, $45 and $65 and available at the Civic Center box office, all Ticketmaster outlets or by phone at 676-8700.


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