Glass Pear, and Finding Happiness in Mediocrity

I kind of jumped the shark last Friday with my whole "I am bad at this" shtick. Real cringey stuff, folks. So I went back into the college archives and tried to figure out if I had always leaned on this particular crutch. It seems likely. Here's a review I wrote for the September 3, 2009 edition of the college newspaper:

Glass Pear: cliché is boring, not cute
by Joe K***
Collegian Editor

     I knew I was in trouble when the PR packet proclaimed: "Featured in Grey's Anatomy and 90210!"
     This is not a review of those TV programs. This is a look at Glass Pear and his debut album Streets of Love. However, to mention that his work has been featured on Grey's Anatomy should be a more helpful description than any other words I write.
     Imagine McDreamy walking in slow motion down the hallways of Seattle Grace Hospital, contemplating broken romances and the hardships of medical residency (yes, my teen sister helped me write this paragraph). If you have any sense of the soundtrack that would accompany such a scene, you already know Glass Pear.
     Glass Pear, the self-proclaimed "quirky moniker" of young musician Yestyn Griffiths, follows the path already well-beaten by fellow piano-based alternative rockers such as the Fray. You know the deal—it's sappy, it's all midtempo, every lyric is about a broken heart and everything must be a ballad.
     In other words, Glass Pear does nothing to differentiate himself from the thousands of other syrupy piano players that told us "how to save a life." It's a shame, too, because I gave this music every chance in the world to make me like it, but nothing ever stood out.
     Take the lead-off track, "Last Day of Your Life," for instance. Naturally, a little piano chord progression starts us off, while Mr. Pear proclaims, "Let me take you to my secret place / high about the earth / into outer space." The piano builds, the drums kick in, a guitar carries us to the chorus "If this was the last day of your life." Make sure to throw in a softly spoken bridge of "I love you / shine on."
     Now rinse and repeat for, oh, about nine more songs, and we have Streets of Love.
     It is sad, in my opinion, that Glass Pear indulges in such trite music, because I get the sense that he is a really talented guy. I mean, don't get me wrong, his voice is great. He could totally make it into the finals of next season's American Idol. Vocals, unfortunately, aren't everything.
     Hey, I'll even give credit where credit is due. The title track, "Streets of Love," is actually pretty catchy. With its quick tempo and surprisingly memorable guitar hook, it stands out as a solid song among many mediocre ones.
     Even a good song, though, leaves me with a feeling of frustration. If Glass Pear shows he can succeed when he quickens the pace and steps out from behind the piano, why can't he just do that more often?
     Of course, I'm not the one Glass Pear is trying to please. I don't like the Fray and I never will. However, I must admit that thousands of young folk do, in fact, like that music, and it is this group of listeners that Pear targets.
     I am willing to acknowledge that my musical tastes do not necessarily align with the majority of my peers. So though my reaction to Glass Pear was mostly negative and at times dreadful, you might just like him. Especially if you have a McSteamy poster above your bed.

How it worked back then was, if the Entertainment section was looking for content, and your fingers were itching to write a review, but you didn't have any CDs in mind, you could just randomly reach into the promotional material bin of castoff shit albums and review whatever you grabbed. That's how I ended up with Glass Pear. I was comics/games editor with a taste for blood.

Trashing an album that deserves to be trashed feels great in the moment, but after the dust settles and you start thinking about the artist themselves, you start to feel a little bad. Yestyn Griffiths did nothing to me personally to deserve a wanton review. His music was inoffensive and boring, that's all. I hoped against hope that in the decade since I wrote the review, he had kept churning out those harmless, innocuous tunes. In other words, I would never fucking listen to him on purpose ever again, but in a just world, he's pulling in a stupid amount of Chicago Fire/Med/P.D. money. So I investigated.

And unfortunately, I didn't find much. Glass Pear released the Streets of Love follow-up, his 2012 self-titled. Then there was a couple of singles in 2014. The first is called "Made of Gold."



It's not terrible. It's possible that the Fray was a poor comparison; this is straight up Guster. Apparently it's the theme song to a "popular" cycling podcast. The lyrics about "climbing a mountain" etc. would certainly seem to fit the bill.

The second single is "Under the Sky."



This isn't terrible either. It's corny as FUCK, sure, but I wouldn't call it boring, no matter how far the sleepy vocals try to drag it, kicking screaming, in that general direction. There's some strings and some guitar pop chords that at least keep it moving.

But after these two singles, I can't find anything at all on the internet. It's been half a decade, then, since Glass Pear released any new material, as far as I can tell. That his Twitter bio still name-drops Grey's Anatomy and 90210 just about breaks my fragile little heart.

I'm not bringing this up to say that some shit review in some shit college rag had any discernible impact on this dude's career in general. I'm just saying that it fucking sucks to try so hard to achieve your dreams, and then for it to go fucking nowhere for years.

Like, I'm picturing Glass Pear now working at his dad's accounting firm in London, sitting behind a desk, mindlessly filing paperwork, scribbling notes for new songs on the margins of a tax packet index page, and then slowly driving home through traffic to his one-bedroom flat, remembering that one fucking episode of Grey's Anatomy.

I'm not saying he was good enough to gain fame and attention for his craft. I don't think my 2009 review of Streets of Love was off-base at all. I just feel empathy for those who struggle with their own mediocrity.

My shitty album reviews are piling up on a blog that few people read, and yet, no matter how nauseatingly self-deprecating they may curdle into, it gives me some sense of happiness to read them. Even if they are just for me! Just a small little hobby that brings some insignificant sense of satisfaction to my life.

And though Glass Pear sucks ass worse that Puke on Your Birthday does, I hope Yestyn Griffiths has a hard drive full of new songs somewhere, never to be released, but songs that he can go back and listen to occasionally, in his spare time, and I hope that gives him that same insignificant happiness. We all deserve to find something we like to do, something that we can whittle away at as we await the inevitability of death. I hope Glass Pear is okay. Hang in there, buddy.