Brooke Hummel is a 13-year-old pop singer. And yes, she is an average singer and it is impressive that she can belt out some pretty notes at her age, but I don't think she's going to become the next Taylor Swift – or anyone remotely close – in the future.
Her album Underneath starts out catchy and promising. And then Hummel starts singing. With a voice that sounds suspiciously auto-tuned, the album's opening song, “If,” is extremely repetitive. The instrumental music overpowers the singing, but it makes me actually wish the singing would just stop all together. The song contains far too many high notes that make you want to cringe and turn it off.
When she brings her voice down an octave for her second number, “Bullet,” Hummel's voice improves a bit, but there is still nothing too impressive in the song. She is still yelling to be heard over the music, which makes it impossible to concentrate on either the lyrics or the music.
The album's third song, “Locket,” was better than the first two as Hummel slows it down, but the cheesy lyrics still sound like they were written by a six-year-old. The fourth and final song of the album, “All the Boys,” was probably the best song of them all. It was actually pretty good, with a calm, repetitive piano melody and sweet lyrics. The only off-putting thing for me is the fact that a 13-year-old baby is singing about serious love. How can a fresh teenager sing about a love life? Well, Hummel gives us the answer – she can't.
In Hummel's American Anthem Records biography, she lists Carrie Underwood, Dolly Parton and Norah Jones as her musical influences. I'm not sure where she gets those singers from, but she does not sound anything like any of them.
Since she sings pop music, the album is fairly catchy, but overall, I would say she is about on the level of one of the songs that plays during a Disney channel commercial in the mornings.
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