Vividly animated to suit the soft tones of the source material, the music video for “Open Up” by Alex Woodard is the perfect accompaniment to the singer/songwriter’s latest release. “Open Up” has a beautifully melodic centerpiece in its vocalist’s pristine crooning, but that isn’t where the magic ends – in fact, this is where its gilded harmonies start and finish. Before a bouquet of instrumentation, Woodard gives us a sweet pop ballad to start off the new year with and, from my perspective, a taste of his skillset that is almost guaranteed to bring him more attention from audiences.
“But heart’s been running around / Where the bright lights shine downtown / It’s got so love don’t know heart no more,” tells a somewhat bewildered Alex Woodard in one of the more memorable stanzas of “Open Up,” but our singer is ultimately unshaken in his statements.
Watch the video for “Open Up” below
His commentary comes from a place of desire, not regret, and not once does this single ever feel like an elegy that has simply been set to an upbeat tune. There’s optimism in our protagonist’s poem, and his is the sort that’s easy to spread – especially when it’s placed before such a gorgeous melodic arrangement.
This is undisputedly the folk-pop fix that I needed this January, and while I already knew I was going to be impressed with a lot of the softer sounds coming out of the underground this year, I’m really impressed with what Alex Woodard is turning out right now. In “Open Up,” he’s an old-fashioned troubadour with the sort of tune to make anyone a fan of acoustic pop all over again, and despite the conservative structure of the song, I think there’s a good chance that this is just a sliver of the melodic potency Woodard can muster when he needs to.
