Stephanie Brownlee – Keep It Real : Single Review
February 22, 2010 by Lisa Dib
Filed under Music, Singles Reviews
Just for the record, I DON’T hate Taylor Swift.
Many find her saccharine and preposterously vanilla, but her country-pop tunes are just so darn-tootin’ likeable, I must admit. When she speaks, I do want to beat myself in the head with the Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus in One Volume, but that’s another kettle of annoying fish.
Stephanie Brownlee : Making impressions - tastefully.
My point being, pop music doesn’t need to be Lady Gaga rubbing her lingerie-d crotch on my TV screen, screaming of sado-masochism.
I do love ‘the Gaga’ also, but acts like Swift and Tamworth-cum-Noosa’s Stephanie Brownlee are penning the kind of singalong, daydream country-pop that can only accompany a beautiful summer like this (I am optimistic because it is not thirty-eight degrees today; do not talk to me on those days).
Keep It Real is the debut single from the seventeen-year-old Brownlee and has all the components of a sweet pop radio hit: wailing steel guitar, acoustic up front, sanguine vocals from Brownlee singing great, realist lines like, “I could write you just a stupid song, with stupid words/ Stupid lines you’ve already heard/ But I feel like you deserve better/ I could tell you that your eyes they shine like stars at night/ Your kisses bring me butterflies/ Wrap it up, end it with ‘forever’/ But who really talks like that?”
People often misconnect country and other country derivatives to the clichés you might find on CMC. Country music has come a long way since Hank Williams and it’s stamping out territory in the mainstream market, whether you like it or not.
But you will, because Keep It Real is a super catchy, effortlessly pleasant slice of earthbound pop.