Stephen Lee cites musical powerhouses such as Earth Wind & Fire, Marvin Gaye, and Prince as influences to his sound, and truthfully his voice is every bit as soulful and pleasant as the legends he admires. On his 2010 single, “Online”, Lee combines his beautiful voice with the sounds of technologically polished R&B that incorporates digitized self-harmony effects and thumping beats. The song even has a great build with the final repetition of the chorus building up to some fantastic vocalizing, keyboard effects, and a small choir of overdubbed vocals. Regrettably, Lee’s talent for singing and the great arrangement don’t help the song fully rise above its lackluster lyric.
Lee’s lyric is an understandable cry of frustration over the growth of social networking sites and the substitute they’ve become for actual, physical, social interaction. Though the meaning is particularly relevant to year of 2010, as time goes by it will become less so. Parts of the song are already dated as Lee sings of MySpace and instant messenger, the former of which may not be around past 2010 and the later of which has gone past its prime. The chorus contains no less than four technological mentions, “Connect on MySpace/Friend you on Facebook/I guess I’ll text you/Watch you on YouTube.”
The growth of technology makes lyrics like this date very poorly very quickly; for example, the 1996 Rush album Test For Echo features the song “Virtuality” with lyrics including “Net boy, net girls/Send your impulse ’round the world/Put your message in a modem/And throw it in the Cyber Sea.“ Though still maintaining an element of truth, the lyrics have not dated well and sound antiquated by today’s standards. Ultimately, the same thing will happen to Lee’s lyric as technology quickly evolves and the social networking fad beings to taper off.
Beyond the technological roll call, the rest of the lyrics are fairly basic. The first verse’s rhyme scheme is predictable and some of the rhymes even halfhearted as Lee ends the lines with face, date, communicate, and way. Lee tries to convey a very timely message, but does it in a way that will not stand the test of time. In his defense though, if Rush, one of the most successful bands of all-time can’t craft a decent lyric in the same vein, then Lee is in good company.
The saving grace of Stephen Lee’s “Online” is that outside the lyric, everything works well. The beat and arrangement is danceable and goes above and beyond by featuring a musical build. Lee’s greatest asset, his beautiful voice, is at the very least featured in fine form. The last minute of the song is the best part as Lee soulfully croons and lets his voice explore its range and power. It’s just unfortunate that his beautiful voice is used to sing a woefully weak lyric. Still, there is enough talent elsewhere in the song to make it a mostly enjoyable listen.
Review by Heath Andrews
