The Piano Guys
Wonders
Portrait
Street: 08.25.14
The Piano Guys = Richard Clayderman – Yanni

With an uninspired and cloying musicality that makes one wish for a John Tesh comeback, local duo Jon Schmidt (the pianist, as in singular) and cohort, cellist Steven Sharp Nelson, present their moniker as though they’re a group. It’s a small point, but when creating little more than cover versions (under the guise of “mash-ups”), how many people does it really take? Blame YouTube for making them popular—where anyone talented or otherwise can be a star, at least to themselves—but that doesn’t make their dreck any more palatable. Worse are their treacly videos, included with the “Deluxe Edition” of the album. It’s bad enough that they made a cover of Frozen’s “Let It Go” to begin with, but do we really need to see their serious “musician” faces too? At least the snowy caverns that surround them reminded me of the maze scene from Stanley Kubrik’s The Shining. –Dean O Hillis