Josh Groban: Awake

CML call number: CD POPULAR Groban
Stephen Holden wrote in the New York Times: "The cultural symmetry was perfect. While the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was having its annual induction ceremony at the Waldorf Astoria on Monday evening, Josh Groban, the 26-year-old pop superstar who has nothing to do with rock ’n’ roll, was serenading faithful Grobanites, as his fans are known, at Madison Square Garden. Call it the peaceful coexistence of two worlds. Mr. Groban specializes in the kind of heart-on-sleeve, Mediterranean-style ballads that were popular long before rock ’n’ roll was a gleam in Little Richard’s eye. His is the music rock was supposed to kill once and for all, yet here it was flourishing in the voice of Mr. Groban, Oprah Winfrey’s pet balladeer, whose newest album, 'Awake' (Reprise) has already sold nearly two million copies. In a strictly symbolic sense, the New World and the Old World were still going at it head to head: unlimited freedom of personal expression (rock ’n’ roll) versus discipline and control within an established hierarchy of artistic values (European pop with Hollywood trimmings). …" (3/14/07).