Silly me for thinking the American Juniors album would feature the 5-member winning group. There are two songs performed by all 10 finalists, as well as one by each of the finalists, but no songs were recorded by the winning group.
The album, “American Juniors: Kids In America,” plays just like the soundtrack for an amusement-park show- think overacting, but in musical format. The two ensembles, “One Step Closer” and “Kids in America,” do not highlight the kids’ singing, but rather it sounds like a pathetic attempt of putting a class of students together and jointly singing the song. There’s nothing special about it, but I doubt that it really true about the kids. They did after all beat out thousands of other hopefuls.
With his performance of “Build Me Up Buttercup,” Morgan Burke taught me two things: Morgan is also a boy’s name, and at least in a solo effort, some of these kids can sing. Though the production is questionable at times (why does he sing the chorus in the same tone again at the end?), Burke can probably sing this song better than some of the American and Canadian Idol finalists.
Some songs are just unfortunate karaoke accidents. Tori Thompson sings the country tune, “Let ‘Er Rip,” but she lacks the country-vibe. She also lacks anything that is overly impressive. Lucy Hale also seems to be missing any star-power or anything that makes her worthy of being one of the finalists.
Chauncey Matthews is fantastic with “A Whole New World,” but it was meant to be a duet and it should be performed as a duet. One person alone cannot do justice to this Disney song.
A.J. Melendez is special for at least one reason: his octave range is huge. Some verses are low, some are high- don’t try copying his techniques; you’ll hurt your vocal chords.
The boys on this album are ten steps above the females, with one exception. Danielle White. Her rendition of “Colors of the Wind,” makes you wonder: if everyone else on the album could sing like her, maybe it would have received a good review.
1.5*
Jive/Zomba/BMG
