We're defying gravity, somewhere in the galaxy [new Vanessa Hudgens]

[koganbot]

Vanessa Hudgens is a Nice Girl type so she's not going to get all sassy and slutty like Danity Kane, but on three of the songs on Identified she multi-tracks her voice into harmonic blobs like the Danitys', and the results are beautiful. Search for "Identified," also "First Bad Habit" and "Amazed"; in addition there's some of the retro-show-biz blues that everyone's doing and that she has to work too hard at to get fun out of, but she does get there. More immediately fun is club track "Hook It Up," where she goes through the motions of being tuff and electro. "Party On The Moon," a song about partying on the moon, is surpassed in outer-spaciness by a synthy bonus number called "Set It Off," about a guy who triggers her alarm circuits and she encourages him to continue. Second half of the album is duller than the first, Vanessa never achieves persona or character, but there's a good amount of good sound.

Comments

[koganbot]

(Of course, Vanessa's not shooting for the exciting multi-vocal polybeat interplay of the Danitys, but I was surprised and pleased she was going multi-voiced at all.)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Haven't had a chance to listen to this yet, but the multitracking doesn't surprise me. She has similar vocal limitations as Paris Hilton -- one person dismissed her by saying something along the lines of "she doesn't seem to have any vocal setting other than 'coo'." Which is coo' by me, but it does make for extra work to sell a melody (how Rihanna, who isn't cooing but also doesn't have a particularly strong, not to say indistinct, voice, always hammers home good melodies I haven't really figured out yet; maybe it's her material?) when some inventive harmonies would probably sound better and actually achieve something powerful.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

"dismissed her" referring to Paris, not Vanilla Hudge.

[koganbot]

I wouldn't call Rihanna's voice weak (at least not on record, which is all I know); rather, it doesn't have a lot of variety, the timbre is always the same burnt sienna or something, a twist of pain, so the way she sounds jaunty or hopeful or anything else nonpained is more by varying the rhythm than by adjusting the basic tone. But it is a striking voice.