She wowed them on Star Search, knocked them dead on Showtime at the Apollo, and stole the show on , impressing curmudgeon producer Simon Cowell enough to make him exclaim, "Bianca Ryan is potentially one of the best singers I have ever heard in my life."
Now comes the real test -- the time to prove whether young Bianca Ryan is indeed a star entertainer or a novelty youth act; whether there is any art beyond the otherwise flawless craft.
And the answer so far is.
.. maybe.
Ryan's debut album includes a number of standards, such as "The Rose", "You Light Up My Life", and "I Believe I Can Fly". The problem with these songs is that they are almost universally songs that are competition pieces -- songs you choose to sing to prove you can sing, because of their difficulty; they're audition songs.
Fortunately, Ryan's repertoire is more than that, including some new tracks written for this self-titled release.
Among them is a track you ought to be hearing repeatedly by now, the seasonal and very upbeat "Why Can't it be Christmas Every Day?" In fact, this holiday song is one of the few up-tempo pop sounding songs on the album, joining "Superstar" and "Awake" in that regard, both of which showcase Ryan's amazing vocal range. In fact, "Superstar" and "Why Can't it be Christmas Every Day?
" have been getting the repeat play on my disc changer.
The other newly written tracks -- "I Wish That" and "Pray for a Better Day" -- mesh with the R B soul and gospel sound that permeates the rest of the album. You can't really believe these mature and soulful sounds are coming out of a tween WASP.
The real question is whether her own peer group is the target audience, or if Ryan and her handlers are trying to reach a more mature and nuanced demographic, because there's not a whole lot of Radio Disney product in this mix.
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