Ali Slaight
"Trace the Stars"
EP
Universal
Genre: adult contemporary, pop
Toronto, ON
Jan 27, 2009 |
There's one crucial difference between this prefab, precocious,
preachy Berklee junior and Sarah McLachlan: McLachlan
surfaced at age 30; Ali Slaight is 19. Otherwise, they're
basically indistinguishable. Slaight's insipid tunes, like
McLachlan's insipid tunes, are constructed from standard elements
of the adult-contemporary playbook. They're much peppier, which is
understandable given Slaight's youth, though it doesn't make
them any less depressing. They're also even more generic, which is
also understandable – I just didn't realize it was possible.
Insultingly, Slaight is being positioned as a singer-songwriter
(on the cover, she's against a wall looking grizzled and pensive) when
she's really just allowing her (impressive) voice to be exploited by
majors as indie astroturf for commercial gain, Idol-style. Where
McLachlan wrote all the songs on her megaplatinum breakthrough
Surfacing, Slaight 'co-wrote' four of the six tracks on
Trace the Stars, and that's listed as a virtue on the press
release. I hope that's a white lie. The only tracks here that show any
hints of personality – the one where she boldly declares that friends
make life better, and the one where she breathlessly talks to a bird
and the moon – would fit seamlessly into an episode of Dora the
Explorer.
Universal is pushing two singles in ads plastered all over public
transit in Slaight's hometown, Toronto: "Great Expectations"
and "Story of Your Life." Think Natasha Bedingfield with barely
any of the hooks or soul. The ads don't mention anything about the
songs other than the titles, because they don't have to. I might add
that the songs in question are mid-tempo songs in major keys with lots
of loud piano, and also that they are both about you, and furthermore
that both were actually written by real singer-songwriter Simon
Wilcox, who has also written hit singles for Three Days Grace
and Paris Hilton. I can see why they wouldn't advertise that
last part though. If you're not sold yet, there's also the epic
"Solitude," a four-minute power ballad about entering an environment
rich with solitude. When I dream about getting home after a long, hard
day and discovering that my roommate's out, I don't picture U2
playing a guardedly optimistic LOUD song about how fortunate I am to
have the place to myself, while Bono bellows, "SOLITUDE, I WEL-COME
YOU." I'm weird like that, though. Universal apparently believes lots
of people aren't. Here's hoping they're wrong.
ali
slaight's myspace
58%
Rhett Alexander
[Vitals: 6 tracks, distributed by
Amazon,
released 2008] |
