Published on Jun 22, 1997
In Korea, she’s advertised as the next Mariah Carey. I found
this so irritating, I had to go out and get the album; and true to
my “drooling Mariah Carey fan” form, I’m smug to admit that Jordan
Hill won’t be stimulating any digestive glands save that for the
ulcer-responsible.
Save a couple of tracks, there is nothing special about the
album. Her squishy-husky vocal technique is similar to Toni
Braxton’s, save the fact that it seems to be devoid of all emotion
(at least with Braxton, her voice’s mood changes in every song).
It’s downright overdramatic … in a bad way.
Everyone from Whitney Houston (high notes) to Roberta Flack
(pianissimo) to, yes, La Carey Mariah (note attack and
improvisation), is imitated shamelessly; this lack of originality
is fatal in today’s Divadom. Many people sing along to divas (trust
me, heheh) and Jordan Hill is simply another karaoke mike bearer.
Only luckier.
When I first heard “Unbreak My Heart”, my head rang with a very
similar song, “I Don’t Wanna Cry”. But it was different enough for
me to eventually accept it. Similar didn’t-I-hear-that-song-before
situations occur frequently; “I Just Had To Hear Your Voice” is
very close to Celine Dion’s “Next Plane Out.” However, Hill’s
blatant pretending does not measure up to Dion’s emotion-well
performance. It’s so boring, I can almost believe that it doesn’t
have a bridge section at all.
All the midtempo tracks are completely without character. Even
after five listenings, I can’t distinguish one from the other; they
all sound like “For The Love Of You”. Except the very last track, a
dance remix of the first track, there are no all-out dance numbers;
ballads and midtempo all the way, each artfully cloned from the
previous. With six different producers, I can’t imagine where they
got this excess coherence; it’s almost impossible. Then again,
“almost” isn’t absolute.
But there are exactly two good tracks which are single
releaseable. “Remember Me This Way” sounds like something David
Foster wrote for Whitney Houston, but since Hill’s primary template
is Houston, it works out. The other track is the aforementioned
dance remix, a spirited “For The Love Of You”. Like a respectable
90’s diva, she has re-recorded the main vocals and added
appropriate power choruses to add that shmaltz atmosphere Europeans
are always producing. My advice: dump the LP version.
Now, I love divas. If the artist is female, has at least three
octaves and has sold a couple of million LPs, I tend to fall for
it. But Hill sounds more like a demo singer than a goddess; you get
used to the tunes and even hum along, but she will never get to do
the requisite Hot Shot Debuts, pack in Tokyo Dome, and
sell promos without some major revamps and artistic
responsibility. In other words, be the first Jordan Hill; not the
next Mariah Carey.