koganbot | Maia, Heidi, Miranda, and Ashley

skyecaptain for Maia Hirasawa's "South Again," a song I'd hitherto casually disliked. E.g., from

girlboymusic:

She loves him, but her heart isn't with him - it's everywhere else. In the south with the cows, in the north with his parents, in the east with her sister and her friends. (And those are the places where she's surrounded by music - she plays piano as much as she wants, and somebody's always singing along: the cows, the mom, the wind - so I don't think her "best" means "she does her best work as a musician" so much as "she is a stable and responsible person." Because in addition to being surrounded by music in the other places, she's also lazy and selfish: she doesn't have to pretend, she doesn't have to deal with people, she sleeps all day, she eats her sister's food, she spends all her time with her friends. She's an adolescent, basically.)

--No doubt I'm the only person in the world to invest his hope in Heidi Montag's music, but the sound on her new single is totally wrong for her. Smooths out her nasality, which leaves nothing distinctive. It's like they gave her an aural nose job. The song itself ("Black Out," written by Cathy Dennis) isn't bad, but needs a whole different approach. Or Heidi needs a different song.

--Also disappointing: new Miranda Lambert, "Dead Flowers," sad and numb, a burnt-out affair, the gentle type of thing she did beautifully back on Kerosene and the sort of theme Taylor Swift could sear you with and freeze you with simultaneously (e.g., "Cold As You" on her first album), and the words are touching, but the music doesn't rise much above average. And the new Ashley Tisdale, "It's Alright, It's OK," an attempt at loud-rocking sugar pop, which ought to be alright, okay with me, and it's hardly terrible, but her voice is haplessly weak, and the music doesn't stack up to recent blaring sugar goo by Pink, Katy, Kelly, Avril (some of which I also find problematic, but better than this).

--And Jukebox gives disparate reactions to the excellent Demi Lovato.