Vanessa Carlton

Forget the Alicia Keys comparisons -- Vanessa Carlton shines on her own. Her involved keyboard athletics are plenty ambitious (check out the seemingly Danielle Dax-inspired version of the Stones' "Paint It Black"), but like a figure skater going for a daring move, Carlton pulls off each song with impressive grace.

Recently, Madonna-spawned pop starlets with names like Britney and Mandy have
overshadowed the trickle of young female musicians derived from the thornier stock of
Tori, Ani, Alanis and Fiona. Twenty-one-year-old Vanessa Carlton, an ex-ballerina turned
singer-songwriter, is self-consciously a part of that trickle (although she has a pouty
schoolgirl thing going on that would make Britney proud). Carlton's classical-pia... More >