Album Review: Kaleidoscope Heart by Sara Bareilles

In 2007 she wouldn’t write us a love song, but now the plucky piano popster is back with a disc full of ’em. On Kaleidoscope Heart, sometimes, as in the airless ”Breathe Again,” all that earnest yearning can make you feel like you’ve been sentenced to life at Lilith Fair. But when producer Neal Avron piles on the theater-kid sparkle — love those strings in ”Uncharted”! — Bareilles sounds like a friendlier Fiona Apple.

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Sara Bareilles began her mainstream career auspiciously enough when Epic Records insisted she write and record a radio-friendly pop love song. The result was the utterly annoying “Love Song”, with it’s ‘you-go-girl’ attitude that only upper-middle-class white soccer moms with bad dye jobs and clingy clothes would sincerely enjoy. Ironically, the remainder of Bareilles’ major-label debut Little Voice is much more enjoyable then the trite “Love Song” that the mainstream radio-listening public was subjected to.

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A mainstream marshmallow with an acidic coating worth a lick. Mark Beaumont 2011 The churning beige waters of the folk-based female singer-songwriter are deep and lucrative indeed, but tough to distinguish oneself amidst. A kooky edge and vocal inventiveness has helped Regina Spektor gain distinctive colour, Shania Twain made billions by delving sporadically into country pop and Tori Amos has done surprisingly well out of playing the pig-suckling nutjob.

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SARA BAREILLES “Kaleidoscope Heart” (Epic). Heartache is no match for show-tune pizazz on “Kaleidoscope Heart,” the second album by the songwriter Sara Bareilles. Pumping piano chords and cheerful insubordination (along with promotion via television commercial) gave Ms. Bareilles a ….

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