Jennette’s cover of “You’ve got a Friend”

Vocals: 9.7/10

Originality: 9.7/10

So after a average-to-good song in the form “Homeless Heart” it was good to hear a different approach, albeit semi formal cover of a classic song, “You’ve got a friend”.

Personally, this isn’t my favourite or a great song for me, even though it is a #1 song and a Grammy Award winning song, not to mention a song covered by dozens of artists. It’s a kids song to me and boasts simple lyrics—nothing compared to the structure of The Beatles, Toto, or any other major band.

Anyway, Jennette as per here last youtube video got her then music producer Ty to provide a guitar accompaniment—swet and simple. Nothing as elaborate as using auto tune or other musical backing to change her voice or the music. Jennette began with an almost simple pitch to her video of “So Far Away”—not too much of a falsetto but providing a certain country tune to the lyrics. As she progressed, it was hard not to be distracted by the guitarist—simple yet excellent complement to her voice.

Jennette really nailed it well in this song not just because it’s a simple song—it’s because she could make parts of it her own. This includes emphasising on the last words in each line, a slight emphasis on the words “fall” and “call” in the chorus—all these small parts make it a true “cover”. If there’s anything that could be improved would be her not referring to the script at the side.

Excellent “recover” from “Homless Heart”.

Yeah this revie is rushed. Will expand on it next time.

Homeless Heart

Vocals: 9.1/10

Originality: 5.1/10

So with all the hubbub about “So Close”, fans and music fans of Jennette were anxiously waiting to grab her next single “Homeless Heart” in May 2009. I was one of those but I wasn’t one who immediately bought the songs off itunes without listening to the preview. Something nagged me when I listened to to the 30 second preview. So I ran a Google search.

If I was a well versed music historian I would Have realized that Homeless Heart was not a new song written by Jennette or even a co write, but a songs written by famous song writers Andreas Carlsson, Desmond Child, and Harry Sommerdahl. It was in fact first passed to Canadian folk singer Amanda Stott, who brought the song on virtually every radio station in Canada and made it one of her hit songs after “Paper Rain”. Stott remarked, “This song hit me the first time I heard it and I knew we’d had to fight for this song because lots of artists wanted it. It has a message that people need to hear—you’re never really alone; there’s always someone you can turn to.” Stott did a music video of her playing the piano and singing the song, bringing out the emotions wonderfully.

In fact, other artist did fight and take that song. Danish singer Bryan Rice took it and also made a music video of it, attempting to show that it was a song for both sexes but unfortunately he failed to bring out some parts in my view, especially with the chorus. The only nice part was his music video’s setting in New York City. Probably not listen to Rice’s version of the songs, German Idol (equivalent) Tobias Regner did a horrible (in my view) baritone version of the song.

So Jennette is the fourth artist to take this simple but rather emotive song.  Covers aren’t new in the music industry—The Bryd’s did a better cover of Bob Dylan’s song Mr. Tambourine Man which hit high on the charts. However, to be the fourth artist covering sucha songs, you’ve got to make it your own and make it popular with the crod. The later of course was easy for Jennette; she had a big fan base from iCarly and a big fan base with “So Close”. For serious or even not so serious music critics, the former wasn’t  exactly achieved by Jennette.

First off, there’s hardly any distinction between her lyrics and Stott’s. Rice and Regner changed part of the lyrics. Takinga cover, it isn’t essential to change the lyrics but then the next factor that people look at is the delivery. Jeannette’s country type singer versus Stott’s who’s inching in and out of country. In my view, Stott’s pitch in the opening and throughout. It brings out line like “Lonesome Stranger” and “If you’re needing A soul-to-soul connection” with more emotion. Not that Jennette couldn’t stress emphasis on any line—she could but it because a incredibly similar song to Stott’s. If ther is any great emphasis versus Stott’s voice its in the chorus as Jennette places stress on ending worlds like “cold” “dark” and endeds the chorus with a better crying voice that Stott.

Moving into the second verse, there’s hardly any similarity again. There’s just a slighter stress on the word “running” but that makes a minute difference to me. Both end the song perfectly versus their male counterparts and that it. Fans have showered praise on this single but no, it’s nothing special. Try again, Jennette.

Jennette’s cover of Carole King’s “So Far Away”

Vocals: 9.3/10

So if you think Jennette wasn’t singing “So Close” or her voice was heavily edited by mixing, her video of her covering Carole King’s “So Far Away” shuts most critics up. It isn’t exactly a 100/100 performance but it shows a large depth of vocal potential in this actress, unlike her counterpart.

Anyway, before I dive into my analysis of her vocals, I must commend Jennette on her choice of musician and choice of song. Most young girls her age would not rank Carole King as their favourite artists, nor would they have heard of songs such as “So Far Away”, which from King’s most successful Album, Tapestry. That song hit number 3 on the Adult Contemporary charts and it is certainly a joy for youngsters like Jennette to cover this song.

King is primarily a pianist while Jennette got a guitarist to accompany her. What was significant was that her accompany music did not drown out her voice so you could her voice with clarity. King has a soother voice in both her live and recorded versions of the song while Jennette voice added a tinge of country tone to it which was well alright but didn’t make any significant difference to me. That’s the problem with doing covers, your adding of a new touch may not create the desired effect.

In any case, Jennette stretched the notes in her cover unlike King’s original version with showed little variation with each line or stanza.  This makes the song  a slightly more focused on the emotion—that is the person of desire is really so far away and that the protagonist sees him/her  “so far away”. That’s the main striking area.

All in all, a good cover that shows a credible range of voice. Perhaps she could have omitted stretching the notes so much but it was a good heartfelt cover.

(This is hastily written—I’ll add more later)

So Close

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.