Sara Bareilles
Little Voice
2007, ***label***
pop, soul
For someone who supposedly doesn’t want to ‘write you a love song,’ Sara Bareilles has a whole lot of love songs on her debut album Little Voice. But that isn’t the only ironic thing about this album – Bareilles voice is anything but little.
If Jane Monheit decided to sit at a piano and write songs, you’d have Sara Bareilles. Like Monheit, Bareilles has a rich voice that evokes images of smoky lounges instead of huge arenas. Her candid lyrics are mildly interesting, but when sung in her voice they take on an unexpected complexity. I wish I liked this album better, but I like to think of it as a Dido album: nothing ground-breaking or really intriguing, just decent music and a great voice.
“Vegas,” “Gravity,” “City,” and “One Sweet Love.”
myspace, last.fm
Bird York’s The Velvet Hour, Catherine Feeny’s Hurricane Glass
