Carly Hennessy: Ultimate High

It appears that the demand for candy-pop musicians may never go out of style, unfortunately, as evidenced by Britney Spears making the top of Forbes’ celebrity list late last month. Though Pink is a different kind of performer — with more genuine singing talent and a lot more spunk — those two are part of the girl pop star continuum, along with Christina Aguilera and Beyonce of Destiny’s Child, that have defined what we come to expect from pretty young things flipping their long curls and, usually, singing precociously about love, life, and girl stuff.

Britney has always been the epitome of that young thing franchise, despite her lack of a great voice. That never stopped Madonna from being famous, after all, or Janet Jackson for that matter. But each girly girl has to have her hook, an attitude that provides her with a niche — whether it’s compellingly raw sexuality, a touch of the Lolita and/or virgin-whore dichotomy going on or the rare combination of infectious confidence, flair and stage presence.

Though Carly Hennessy was meant to be the newest incarnation of a hodgepodge of some of those characteristics, she didn’t quite capture the essence of that girl power. There are a couple of reasons why she missed the mark, but depending on what you read, you’ll get a slightly altered version of where she went wrong.

Hennessy’s debut album, Ultimate High is an attempt to join the ranks of trite material with slightly above average music. The main thing those ladies have that Hennessy doesn’t is attitude. But there are a host of other things missing from this Dublin native, despite the fact that MCA, according to the Wall Street Journal, put $2.2 million dollars behind this project only to see it flop miserably — by early March of this year, Hennessy had only sold roughly 400 copies of the disc.

Her story has been touted as a hard luck parable since the front-page Wall Street Journal story ran, with major outlets from Ireland and the rest of the U.K. deeming her the next Britney Spears who was dealt a double whammy. One, Sept. 11th was the next day and who was going to promote an album that came out the day before the world changed? True, that didn’t stop a lot of other artists released around that time to flop so horribly (Jay-Z, to name one, but maybe that’s unfair; he’s an established artist, after all) — but she was slated to be the Next Big Star, it was her first album, and aside from a mysteriously glowing review in Billboard magazine, no one had really heard of the girl. Secondly, there’s a recession on and the music industry isn’t doing so well. All kinds of things stood in the way of 18-year-old Hennessy’s rise to the top.

It’s interesting to note, however, that few people can make a case that the album is actually good. It’s not. The self-taught singer, who has done everything from act in a production of Les Miserable and perform for audiences since the age of 10 to being the cute face behind a sausage ad for Denny’s, may not, in fact, be destined for greatness — at least not with this album. It’s understandable that no one wants to waste $2 million trying to figure that out — after all, the economy is still in the toilet — but presumably the thought process is that stars are made, not born.

The single that never truly was on this side of the world, “I’m Gonna Blow Your Mind” is menacingly flat. Lines like “I really, really wanna kiss you / You’re here and I already miss you” are not only dull, but her delivery does nothing to compensate for the lyrical junk food. To add insult to injury, that single never really caught on because it was meant to be a song about oral sex and was too mature for the teen pop crowd, too inane for adults. So, MCA tried again and got Hennessy a modeling contract with Maybelline. The second single, “Beautiful You”, was meant to be a cute girl anthem. But she probably did better with the modeling bit, since that song didn’t catch on either.

There are few moments when Hennessy departs from that formulaic, teeny-bopper mode — “You’ll Never Meet God (If You Break My Heart)” is hideously repetitive and sounds like Debbie Gibson meets Sheryl Crow — and Crow even wrote some of the material on Ultimate High which is hardly surprising.

Thankfully, there are moments like “No One’s Safe from Goodbye” that are sweet without being overly sticky. Hennessy’s voice is powerful in some ways, which this song showcases, and the story of a gullible girl falling for a bad boy is rendered poetically. The same type of potential is evident on “I Need A Little Love” and the best song on the album, “Rip in Heaven.”

“Young Love” is undoubtedly the most annoying song on this album, but is followed with the lovely and ironic “Just Missed the Train,” which is evidently what happened to Hennessy with this effort. MCA is actually gearing up to make her more of a hit as this goes to press, so it’ll be interesting to see just how much money the company will spend to turn her into the pop star she’d like to be. True, it takes most solo artists an album or two to get their just due, and there’s still time for her to grow into her voice and material, and even get better producers on board. Still, with the amount of independently produced and largely undiscovered (or ignored) talent out there in the world, there’s no reason to lavishly support a mediocre singer — whether she is or isn’t the next incarnation of Britney Spears. Either you’ve got it or you don’t: and Hennessy falls far short.