Artist Secondhand Serenade

Secondhand Serenade is John Vesely, a Dashboard Confessional clone whose nauseating earnestness may be genuine but sounds calculated on his 2007 debut, Awake. Just how eye-rollingly emo is Secondhand Serenade? Take a gander at some of Awake’s song titles: “Half Alive,” “Broken,” “Vulnerable,” and so on. Given the quick turnaround for 2008’s follow-up, A Twist In My Story, it seemed unlikely Vesely would have found some new inspiration for the record; sure enough, it was every bit as derivative as its uninspired predecessor. Vesely promised to give 2010’s Hear Me Now a more upbeat tone, though the first single, “Something More,” is a weepy OneRepublic knockoff.

Updated 05/04/2011