Vanessa Carlton "A Thousand Miles"

Also, "Turn Out The Light" was a great single and also "nelly nelly nelly yo/on your radio"

I don't think the hardcore Billy Joel/Queen kids (musical theatre kids, not drama club Maura) would go for a straightahead verse-chorus-verse pop song like this, it's the prog-lite neoclassical bits that they dig. That is the last demographic anybody is marketing to anyway.

Her piano playing reminds me of Andy Pratt a bit...makes my heart leap in a way that is completely shameless and pure.

I do like the piano part of "A Thousand Miles," but it sounds very out of place with the rest of the song, which is like what you'd hear in the cold, fluorescent-lit bathroom of a Denny's, alongside "Still the One" and "This Kiss."

in my high school, they were the same. (straight play in the fall, musical in the winter, theatre-in-the-round in the spring.)

I love all the condescension to imaginary "townies," suburban teen girls etc...very Pitchfork. Sure, Carlton sounds like a middle class child prodigy who's been told she's a star since junior high, but so do every last one of the "natural soul" singers and nobody holds that against them. Let's compare official bios...

http://www.vanessacarlton.com/
http://aliciakeys.com/biography.html

Almost identical, except Keys grew up in Hell's Kitchen while Carlton just lived and worked there at 17. So I guess Carlton is less real than Keys but more real than Lauryn Hill, who was acting in "Sister Act 2" and applying to Columbia at that age. Bring on the Grammy!

1) "Soul-baring" is not "soul music." I was not comparing the two, nor comparing Carlton to any reputedly legitimate soul singers, nor making any claim to anybody's authenticity whatsoever. For the record, I find Alicia Keys every bit as dull as Carlton, and somewhat smug to boot (not "isn't she talented" but "aren't I talented?").

2) Carlton attended the Professional Children's School in NYC, which was the rich-kid's equivalent of LaGuardia (the High School of Performing Arts, where I was a student in the early '90s). I speak from years of experience hanging around kids like Carlton, and I kinda used to be one, so no I'm not condescending, I'm relating and empathizing. She's very much the archetype of the reared-by-stage-parents, rushing-off-from-lesson-to-lesson, studied-and-primped Star In The Making.

3) Am I fascinated by this archetype as a musical substratum or whatever? Sure. Do I like the music? Not really.

And Beth's voice isn't pop-affected like Carlton's is -- she's not even that folk-affected, come to think of it. She just sounds like herself.

Hahaha I just have nothing to say about the song itself: I suppose I enjoy it enough right up to the chorus, which blows through a bit too much for me to really get into it. Pleasant, though.

I don't really hear it.

Mainly it's just the way the piano figure connects up to a more "rock" bass-and-drums counterpoint -- with piano fills between the vocal phrases -- that reminds me of Suddenly Tammy.

That I do hear, although I think Sorrentino's playing is a bit more progressive (huge, complicated chord constructions) than Carlton's (those simplistic arpeggio figures).

No harm, no foul?

until it's "more than me" at which point you're just an uncritical fangirl, obv.

Her lyrics are crap, and I can't stand the cloying, come-hitherish glances she mawkishly throws at the camera in her vids. NEXT!

"IIIIII - LLLLLLLL - MMMMMMM / will be the death of me...."

and everybody putting everyone else down/all the dead bodies piled up in mounds

and when the conversation begins to flow/then i don't care anymore

and i guess that i just don't know/and i guess that i just don't know.

I like her voice as much as her piano actually.

i love this song

^^^^^^^

"White Houses" too.