Vanessa Hudgens - 'Baby Come Back To Me'
Hands up anyone who's surprised that the kids from High School Musical ended up launching their own pop careers? It'll be like a real-life re-enactment before long, with the Vanessa Hudgenses and the Ashley Tisdales battling each other to see who can get to No.1, only without the advantage of being able to read the script and see what happens. Hmmm.
So Vanessa's doing the smart thing and getting in first with this slick, Amelia-style R&B number with a suitably grand string-laden intro. Once we get past that, though, it's not long before you start playing the family favourite game of "which other songs were mashed together to come up with this?" Our shortlist included 'Blink' by Rosie Ribbons, 'Say It Again' by Precious and 'Complicated' by Avril Lavigne, and there's probably still a few that we missed.
Vanessa acquits herself well on the vocals (she sounds more at home singing stuff like this than she did on High School Musical, if you ask me), but it's a bit overproduced and slightly soulless in that kind of relentlessly-perky way that graduates of the school of Disney stardom sometimes have. Maybe the song itself were a little bit more original we wouldn't notice that, but it wasn't, and so we did.
Released: January 15th
(Steve P)
