Vanessa Carlton on Chapter 3 of her Fairytale

(andPOP) - Once upon a time, the undoubtedly talented Vanessa Carlton had seen her fair share of unhappy endings. After becoming a megastar with the smash single "A Thousand Miles," Carlton saw her second album, "Harmonium," fare terribly on the charts upon its release in 2004, which resulted in her subsequent release from A&M Records.

The third time, however, may be the charm for Carlton's fairytale career, as the release of album No. 3, "Heroes and Thieves," put the 26-year-old Jill-of-all-trades back on the map.

"I look at this [album] as a musical story book. It's really my first concept record," Carlton proudly explains to andPOP. "Basically, I just piled up these experiences from the past, from the year leading up to [this], and every song on the album represents a defined period in my life, or a question, or a lesson learned. It became this really cohesive record."

"Heroes and Thieves," as Carlton describes it, follows the format of a fairytale, and similarly, the songs symbolize different chapters in her life leading up to now. The songs are like a timeline, mapping Carlton's growth as an artist, and a woman as well.

"You can notice the fundamental changes in the approach to my work that comes with experience. I have a very clear vision now and awareness when it comes to music," she says with a certain confidence, sounding far beyond her years. "The whole process was like a midnight arts and crafts session. It was all written and recorded in those enchanted hours, the ones that are most alive, and most kinetic."

Putting the album together, under Irv Gotti's label The Inc., was a labour of love for Carlton. Coincidentally, her latest single "Hands on Me," addresses labours of love in a literal sense.

"This song reflects such an intensity about vying for somebody else," Carlton says. According to her, longing for the affections of another is "such a universal situation, everyone can relate."

The lyrics, which were in part crafted by her ex-boyfriend Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind, are filled with a concentrated, yet tender passion that reads through in the song's music video. Taking place in an understated boudoir, Carlton rolls around in bed fantasizing about a man whom she met at the video exchange – certainly a touch racier than the video for "A Thousand Miles" where she rode a piano off her driveway and down the street.

A piano on wheels became an image closely associated with Carlton since the video for "A Thousand Miles" appeared on MTV and music channels across the globe in 2002. Wanting to separate herself from the image, although beautiful, Carlton decided that she would counter the icon by smashing a piano with a car in her video for "Nolita Fairytale," her first single off her latest album.

"I felt it was the perfect parlay into the new chapter, resurrecting the old image of the moving piano, which was lovely, but in order for me to move forward, I guess I had to run it over," she says with a laugh as she describes the opening scene of the music video that debuted this fall. The scene symbolized transition from the old Vanessa to the new Vanessa. But aside from the abstract meaning, "it was just really fun to hit a piano with a car."

The album focuses on matters of the heart, the search for identity, and the discovery of happiness, as it mirrors Carlton's personal quest for the same. However Carlton's whole life isn't lived strictly in song.

"I actually draw, and I love to go treasure hunting in [New York], to find people's old photos and stuff. I love interior design, and estate sales, I take long walks, and I'm trying to start a stationary line to resurrect the art of the written note," she says, as her dog bounces around on her knees.

"I'm sorry, my dog just jumped up on to my lap," she laughs apologetically as she struggles to keep the phone in her grasp. "His name is Lord Victor," she says of her brown-haired dachshund, "and he's very handsome. I like to think that he [was once] an all knowing, omnipotent professor of 'something' from the 1880s."

With a dog by her side, a new label, a fairytale life in Nolita, and hopes that her album can start climbing the charts faster than Jack climbed his beanstalk, Vanessa Carton, it can be assumed, is destined to continue to make music, and live happily ever after.


The End.