Carly Rae Jepsen - Artist Review

Artist grade: A

Vocal grade: C+

Vocal range/type: Soubrette (Soprano), C3-D6 (Three Octaves, One Note)

Best album(s): E•MO•TION

Worst album(s): N/A

Best song(s): "Sweetie, "Run Away With Me", "Call Me Maybe", "Cry", "Bucket", "Tonight I'm Getting Over You", "Good Time" (with Owl City), "Sour Candy" (ft. John Ramsay), "Your Type", "Part Of Your World", "Your Heart Is A Muscle"

Worst song(s): "It Takes Two" (with Mike-Will-Made It and Lil Yachty)

Positives: Nice, pleasant sounding, bright and airy vocals that fit all styles of music she has attempted. The voice is extremely light and has a youthful, but not immature tone that stays pretty consistent throughout her range, including her falsetto. Her voice does lose quite a bit of its breathiness in the upper range, starting around the A4. 5th octave notes are a bit raspy. Like said prior, her falsetto is bright, and she can easily transition to it from chest voice, and can stay in it for a long time. While she's had her share of immature songs, her songwriting often shows experience and maturity, which is good considering she's in her 30s. Often well-written compositions. Diverse personality, allowing her to play all sorts of roles in her content. While she often doesn't utilize it, she is a decent guitar player. 

Negatives: The immature songwriting at times such as with "Call Me Maybe" can come off as off-putting for some people. There's not a lot of support from her diaphragm, causing the voice to lack resonance throughout the entire range. A lot of people, particularly classical and choral music listeners, won't often be fond of the breathy vocals, especially in her lower range. She has trouble with intonation and support while belting. Not everyone is a fan of raspy vocals, and her more cute, girly tone is not to everyone's tastes. Her voice doesn't carry a lot of weight.

Overall: She's cute. Coming from someone who's over a decade younger than her, I'll admit that. Crush on her aside, while being far from stellar as a vocalist, she often has good production to support her vocals, and she knows what music works well for her voice. It's fun to think she has the same top note as me (a D6, though I can probably go higher). She is a competent songwriter and composer. She can convincingly play cute and innocent, sensual, or sexy in her content. I'd be willing to call her a hidden and very underrated gem. Carly Rae Jepsen shows you can be an amazing musician without being a great vocalist.

Fearless by Taylor Swift - Album Review

The stellar country pop release from Taylor Swift released almost a decade ago, getting only my second 10/10 so far on this blog. 

Release date: 11 November 2008

Record label: Big Machine Records

Genre: Country pop

Best songs: "Fifteen", "You Belong With Me", "Love Story", "Forever and Always"

Worst songs: "The Best Day" (if I had to pick one)

Rating: 10/10

See, I was only 9 in 2008, so I really wasn’t too much into music, and what I grew up was Usher, TLC, 90s-2000s R&B, along with a bit of the classics like The Beatles. Taylor Swift was one of the mainstream acts, one of the first, that I got exposed to. Granted, I didn’t put it together, because again, I was 9. But I loved “Love Story” and “You Belong With Me” as a kid, such excellent songs. I didn’t know who they were from - I never kept track of artists. Skip to 2012-2013, and we had “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”. Arguably, her sellout anthem that everyone I knew hated, and to be honest, I hopped on the bandwagon. Not knowing that the teenage girl I used to love listening to turned into this. So, we get 2008’s ‘Fearless’. Her best-selling album so far, and getting pretty good reviews. Does it hold up past nostalgia?

Well, it definitely does. I always went back to listen to the two aforementioned singles. But, then I got into “Fifteen”, and it made me want to go back and look at the whole record. And it holds so well. You get the Romeo & Juliet referenced “Love Story”, the friendzone anthem of “You Belong With Me”. Sure, she did it with “Teardrops On My Guitar”, and while that song is good, it came off as a bit petty compared to this one. And the fact I can kind of sympathize with this song (not the having a crush on a jock part as referenced from the video), but feeling that you could be a better match for the one you love. Although, this is where my bit of a crush on Taylor comes in, because who the hell would friendzone Taylor Swift? Like, seriously? Personal feelings aside, it has a surprising bit of energy and a nice build-up behind the melody. Then you get the advice song that is “Fifteen” saying that you may not know who you’re supposed to be, that life hasn’t truly started even though you may think so. And that boy you may love may not be the right one, being told from her own high school experiences. And that’s where she definitely shines on this album. Her charisma, her relatability. This is why I don’t feel good about bashing those who have teenage fanbases, especially when they’re teenagers themselves. If she can emotionally connect with them, then that’s pretty good. The breakup anthem of “Forever And Always” abou Joe Jonas has some good energy and is more a question of why this went wrong. The nice ballad of “White Horse” doesn’t get boring, where she realizes that this boy won’t be sweeping her off her feet, he’s a different person than she thought. And hell, while I can’t relate to the love part, and certainly can the misconceptions about a person. It shows that she can move on pretty well, while other songs show a bit of difficulty at times, this pulls it off really well with a nice guitar melody.

If I had to pick a song I don’t like, it would be “The Best Day”. While it does do a nice sentiment, a song about her growing up, the composition is so basic and dull. It gets boring really easily. Something that doesn’t happen with songs like “Tell Me Why” or even the ballad “White Horse”.

But really, I had to be forced to nitpick at one song specifically, and there’s not really any overarching problem. I love this album, I guess I’m a bit biased as a fan of Taylor Swift and someone who’s also 18, like she was on this album. I didn’t think a musician barely considered an adult could impress me so much, but she showed strength in songwriting, that was at times sloppy, but honest. I had a ton of charm and personality, it had a nice country pop sound, the production was done pretty well. And while Swift doesn’t do much range wise, her charisma sure makes up for it. 10/10.

Taylor Swift - Artist Review

Artist grade: B-

Vocal grade: C-

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.