Vocals: 9.6/10
Lyrics: 9.0/10
Music:9.4/10
So Close is the debut single by was written by Jennette herself, Ty Stevens Joy Williams. It was released on Itunes and Amazon on March 10 2009 worldwide. If you’ve seen Jennette act and visited her sites long enough, you won’t be surprised that she would choose to release a song. But choosing the country-pop genre as her debut song? That did shock some people.
Country music may well be entrenched in the US and in some other countries, but for youngsters watching iCarly and young teen shows, they are probably walking more with the pop music generation. Not to mention that there’s been the churning out of teen pop stars and American Idol winners. Carrie Underwood and a few others have turned the spotlight on country music. but unless you are committed to that music and that career, I basically see the pop genre as the prevailing music now.
Even so, Jennette carved a start not based on external pressures such as people throwing songs at her or thrusting contract deals in her face. For starters, she named Taylor Swift as one of of her influences–that a great start. Second, unlike the prevailing group of pop singers, she co-wrote this song, based on an experience she had. What ever it was, it’s certainly wonderful that she co-wrote it. It’s not that singer-songwriters are dead but ever since the 1990s, attention is more placed of the image of the singer, not the composition of songs. The Beatles, the Bee Gees (to some degree) left the final mark with songs with meanings and song written based on experiences. Jennette’s own composition is a bright change from other’s who rely on songwriters to give them songs.
Back to ”So Close”, if you aren’t familiar with country music, well the first few seconds will draw you into the genre straight away. It’s definitely not 1970s/1980s country (which I’m more familiar with) but sounds more like a Texan/Southern theme which continues out. The words “pushing and pulling’” are slurred to sound more like “shampoo” but I’m not complaining there. The percussion chimes in after this and it adds to the real Perfect set of rhymes with “could” and “would” in the second stanza and the story progresses pretty ok so far—it shows the “hungry eyes” in a moderate manner.
The chorus chimes in with the emotions belting out straight away. While the majority of pop and some country songs show a lost love or a seeking for love in the usual manner, this chorus stands out throwing it the crush really has. Jennette varies her vocals perfectly with the line “’Cause my heart is yours to have and hold or break”.
My favourite part is the next stanza. If we’re shown that the girl has caught her love in the chorus and the first two stanzas, this stanza, lyrically and vocally shows how much he is her eye candy. It’s so much the equivalent of parts of Eric Carmen’s “Hungry Eyes” (which is a Billboard 100 #4) so that says how much I love this stanza.
Skip down to the stanza after another chorus. At this point the building up of the girl’s love for her eye candy is evidently shown but the differences in the “I wish you were mine”. My only complaint after this is there is no instrumental solo before chorus concludes the song with difference tone. Furthermore, Jennette should have dragged on the last “far away”—that’s the sort of touch judges like Simon Cowell have. Overall, emotions are displayed perefectly, vocals are excellent and music well, fits even though you aren’t a country genre lover.
Two questions now :
A) Is this Jennette’s real voice or has it been digitally altered?
First, all studio songs go through mixing and with current technology you voice naturally can be altered to fit what ever tone, range, pitch etc etc. Mixing is common in all songs and you can’t use that as a fault. At this stage, Jennette has not sung the song live but a) she has sung covers on her Youtube channel which I will review b) if you look at her various films, her accent changes so much. Especially in iCarly, she puts on a slightly husky lower tone to fit in with Sam’s character. So Jennette can changer her vocals and can sing. Whether or not she can perform “So Close” live exactly like the record (or rather almost exactly) we have yet to find out
B) Why isn’t the song on the official charts?
Good question. As you can easily find out, “So Close” is still on the itune charts and within the first day of release, it hit high spots on the iTunes Pop and Country Charts. Official charts as far as I’m away, rate digital download songs base on the number of downloads. Naturally with it high on iTunes, it should be on the country charts. My take is that people are distributing free copies of “So Close” and her second song “Homeless Heart” via file sharing sites. This decreased the overall number of downloaded copies. Second, her song is not on the airways for reasons only known to her. (Well I can’t tune in to American radio stations but I’m sure of my statement). Official charts are a challenging thing to enter. So tell your friends to stop downloading Jennette’s songs for free and advertise “So Close” legally so that perhaps some DJ may play it and eventually push it on the charts.
All in all, it’s a great debut single for an extremely talented actress who truly enters the music industry in what I call the “proper” fashion. Not by singing a cover, not my riding high on media popularity (though that is still crucial), not by just image but by great vocals, lyrics that emphasise the theme through out and nice rhythm.