Vocal range/type: Soprano, C3-A5 (Two octaves, five notes)
Best album(s): Fearless
Worst album(s): Red
Best song(s): "Love Story", "You Belong With Me", "Our Song", "Picture To Burn", "Style", "Back To December", "I Heart?"
Worst song(s): "Bad Blood" (ft. Kendrick Lamar), "I Knew You Were Trouble.", "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", "Shake It Off", "I Don't Wanna Live Forever" (with ZAYN)
Positives: Charming, charismatic voice with a lot of personality. Can portray emotion very well through vocals. Despite being a soprano, sports a very good lower range, and has a relatively low tessitura. Has songwriting talent, and writes often basic, but very good sounding compositions.
Negatives: Relatively poor range, has a tendency to be off-key during live performances. And again, despite being a soprano, her upper range is pretty poor, often having to rely on her head voice. As shown in her live performances, her breath support isn't great, as she often sounds tired after a song or two. No vibrato. Despite her songwriting talent, it could be argued her compositions and lyrics are very "safe", with her public presence and mainstream support, she can afford to take risks, and has the potential to do so... but doesn't. Her change to pop has been criticized, as her songwriting seems to have lost a bit of that authentic feel often portrayed in her work prior to the Red album.
Yeah, Taylor Swift. This review was finally put up. I can't give her higher than a B- for now. While she has a few positives, her negatives often outweigh that. Her charisma does help a lot, and the fact she's such a talented woman, to take the sellout switch to pop was disappointing, to say the least. Next, I will be looking to do an anime review, but next on the artist review chopping block is Drake Bell, so stay tuned.
Drake Bell, known for his role as Drake Parker as the hit Nickelodeon series Drake & Josh (of which won him 9 Kids Choice Awards), the voice of Spider-Man on Disney XD's Ultimate Spider-Man, as Timmy Turner in the Fairly Odd Parents live-action trilogy,and his starring role in the feature film Superhero Movie, has officially sold out. He has also released legitimately great albums like the pop rock/alt rock "Telegraph", the powerpop "It's Only Time", and the EP "A Reminder". And while the rockabilly mostly cover album "Ready Steady Go!" was underwhelming for me, it was still a good album, and he got a lot of fan and critical support with this, like all of his releases so far.
Then... he released this.
Which seemed to divide his fans. While the like/dislike ratio is overwhelmingly on the like side like all his videos are, looking at the comments tell a different story. Why the backlash? Well, while Drake does explain to fans with a smug and arrogant attitude that "we play all the instruments", and "If you had any idea what kind of musicianship is needed to make what you just heard you'd get it". I get people had an issue with the more electronic pop/dance sound. Now, me personally, I'm fine with that. If he wanted to branch out like he's done that's fine. You can make pop music and still be good. But then this comment he made, just shit all over whatever positive thoughts I had for these upcoming songs.
In the image above, Bell states when referring to the more rock and roll side he's played the past couple of years: "Remember when no one buys that kind of music anymore? If you guys actually went out and bought my records I'd be able to make the kind of records you want but until you guys actually support me I gotta play the game". And apparently, that's also why he left Surfdog Records, because of the low sales of Ready Steady Go! (it sold 2,000 copies in its debut week). Because not a lot a people bought the album. Now... I remember him saying when he was making his rockabilly album, he said this: "I don't care if people buy it or not, or come to see the shows or not... I'm gonna make the record I've always wanted to make". (Video here for reference)
So, it's clear Drake Bell has officially sold out, and is a huge hypocrite, as in that interview posted above, he talked about how other child stars fall off the rails and criticized Justin Bieber for his DUI, then... got a DUI. While I can't confirm this, as I don't know him personally, but from these comments, his whole "nice guy, happy all the time" attitude... is fake as hell, and is just to keep up his public appearance in the media, keep it positive, because not only did he sell out and constantly judged pop music, while later heading in that direction to make money, he comes off as a huge... well, I don't wanna say asshole, that's not that accurate. I can compare him to Kanye West - someone who often makes good music, but their ego turns them into massive pricks. He responds to me on YouTube and others with comments like: "They will be out very soon! THank You!!" and "Thank You! I'm really excited about these new songs!", like he's appreciative, when his other comments say otherwise. He's either two-faced, or bipolar. If the latter, I apologize and should not be ranting on you for your mental illness. But all in all, I'm still a fan... for now. I appreciate the fact he's still using real instruments and still keeping some artistry there. But man, this is not a good sign going forward. And I'm not so sure how much longer I can deal with his bullshit. You keep saying you want to collaborate with Paul McCartney, but is he really going to want to do anything with you? Well, he worked with Kanye West and Rihanna, so actually maybe. This album better be good Drake, or me, along with likely many other fans, will leave you, and you can sellout to make pop music for the general public, losing all your artistic integrity along the way. He tries to liken himself to a street musician (as evidenced in his video "I Know"), and really, one of those street musicians would kill to have the success you've had! And you're not even appreciative! You know... the funniest thing is, I left a comment on that video of the new song saying I hope it becomes a hit. But Drake... if you're doing this for money like it shows... I wish you the best of luck, but at the same time, I kinda hope it does worse than your older music, so he'll go back to the older stuff. Or maybe if and when he gets mainstream popularity, he can try doing more of his older music again.
Sorry, I may have come off as a little bitter, especially since I'll probably not care and like the songs anyway, but I haven't had a great past couple of weeks, and this just... man, to see a great entertainer like Drake Bell fall so far... it's just sad, you know? Let me know of what you think about this, either in the comments below, or in the replies on my posting of this article to Billboard.
