Girls and Boys - Dark Publications

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
Early on in "Breakable," from her excellent Girls and Boys, Ingrid Michaelson muses on the fragility of the heart, in both the literal and symbolic senses--"have you ever thought about what protects our hearts--just a cage of rib bones and other various parts… we are just breakable girls and boys." Ingrid Michaelson's songs have been featured on Grey's Anatomy episodes and Old Navy commercials, and there's a good reason she keeps getting selected for such high-profile exposure--the songs on Girls and Boys are an immediately appealing blend of pop song craft and vulnerable emotion. Michaelson has a more accessible voice and presentation than contemporaries like Feist and Regina Spektor, and her piano-driven arrangements hit all the right peaks and valleys, calling on a delicate acoustic guitar here, an overdriven electric there, to highlight her alternately joyful and mournful melodies. In short, she's made a fine pop album worth checking out, even if you're not a fan of Dr. Meredith and McDreamy. --Ben Heege

Customer Reviews: Read 72 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

Girls and Boys October 10, 2007
25 out of 29 found this review helpful

Ingrid Michaelson's album, "Girls and Boys", is excellent. Plain and simple. Ms. Michaelson has a smooth, mellow quality to her voice that's uniquely hers. I also appreciated the album for its simplicity. It's easy to see why they wanted to use her music for shows and commercials.

"The Way I Am" is the song that will guide most people to give her a listen. I think this song might be the most popular, but also one of the simplest songs. It showcases her voice's goodness with music that doesn't try to overwhelm. "Corner of Your Heart" is strangely haunting. The piano creeps in like you're walking in on the music from the hall. A great track. The track, "Overboard", shows more dynamic range. I might also like it a little because it has very Keane-like piano playing.

"December Baby" is good though it has that tinny guitar that saps energy from Ingrid's vocals. As a song it takes some interesting turns. It starts off simple enough with Ingrid singing along to a simple tune on acoustic guitar, but surprises about halfway through in a pleasant mix.. then slowly easing back into the way it began. "Breakable" was also a quality track. Lyrics were almost violent for how short and sweet the overall music is, but it still works. The one track I found personally annoying was "Highway". It just doesn't sound good on the album.

Overall, the CD is excellent. There were a few songs that didn't grab my attention, but the album as a whole gives off a lot of personality. It didn't seem simple to the point of being stripped down and too "indie". "Girls and Boys" shows her versatility as an artist and, while it isn't earth-shatteringly different, it's highly recommended. With the ease of test driving music, it's the least you can do.
My favorite tracks were: Corner of Your Heart, Die Alone, The Way I Am, December Baby, Overboard, Breakable.

5 out of 5 stars

The welcomed resurrection of the singer/songwriter November 16, 2006
22 out of 22 found this review helpful

Michaelson's "Girls & Boys" is nothing less than fantastic -- and, man, is it heartening to hear a singer/songwriter who knows how to play an instrument (or two or three), makes her own arrangements, knows how to string a sentence, and...can sing! Ingrid's the real deal. Smart, funny, poignant, with an ethereal voice that wraps up the whole package nicely. Michaelson is young, and her songs circle and dip a toe around the subjects of love, growing up, betrayal, et al, but she does it very well; in a way that can embrace many audiences of many ages -- I'm really looking forward to watching this artist grow and mature. Brava, Michaelson.

5 out of 5 stars

Great songs from a great artist September 27, 2007
20 out of 22 found this review helpful

"Girls and Boys" has gotten a lot of attention as a result of its songs showing up in many high profile places. Grey's Anatomy, an Old Navy commercial, and Carson Daly's show to name a few. While all of the attention is deserved - and the placements are doing for this artist what radio and the main stream press used to be able to do, it's easy to lose sight of how great the songs are. From the Breeders-esque opener, "Die Alone" to the stunning "Breakable" there's nary a clunker to be found. Ingrid's penchant for memorable melodies and poetic witticisms coupled with her knack for writing clever, simple songs delights from start to finish. Her voice never aims to boast, rather, she takes the high road and aims to please instead. "Girls and Boys" is a winner and a record you won't soon forget.

4 out of 5 stars

melancholy, sprightly and melodiously quirky August 1, 2008
18 out of 18 found this review helpful

Ingrid Mishaelson has been, as noted above, featured in Old Navy Commercials, and those emotionally drenched scenes on Grey's Anatomy and One Tree Hill. The New York based artist has a rather quirky feel to her music and on ocassions the festive lilt of the campfire chanteuse. Her songs are suffused by a poetic tension, and the lyricism is always smart and intuitive. She deftly applies caesuras, alliterations and the whole gamut of poetic devices. She was born in an artistic family, her dad Carl, a composer and her mom, Elizabeth Egbert, is the Director of the Staten Island Museum. Her trepidation and soulful plaintive dramatizations are offset by a brilliant wit that nourishes the strife with elusive bounds of genius. She sounds like Regina Spektor without the grit, and is as melodious as Bjork without the shrills of madness. Her songs lead a touted dalliance that gives these age old topics of love, love unrequieted, and broken hearts, an emtional cadance that betrays a sense of humor and tentalizes the listener by informing the conscience of the music with a dash of brio, enough to depict self-pity as both loathsome and sympathetic. This is best exemplified in her songs "Corner of Your Heart" and "Glass", the latter opaquely muddles the speaker who admits that "I see through you...as you see through me, as if invisible." However in other titles such as the more illustrious "The Way I Am" and "Die Alone" she surrenders her acts to a love that is sufficient and fulfilling. Her personae are vivid and colorful, startling and impregnated by dissimulating logic and orphaned sentimentality, which is not to say that this is a depressing CD. On the contrary it has an abundance of tracks that feature a joyous attitude, and her vocal prowess is used to pitch perfect adumbrations to cull such motifs with as much success as the more somber ones.
Her sensibility is tested somewhat in the 12th, and hidden track, "Far Away" where while performing similar antics to her description of the fragile psychological surrender evinced in, for example, "December Baby" where the speaker wishes to crawl back into her mother's womb, while in "Far Away" she diverts herself in a tuneful, sportive cynicism affected by the twang of country music. To what extent she succeeds is for you to decide, but it was recorded all in good fun. The emotional depth of the lyrics, the dramatization of each chracterization, the melodious bravado of the vocalizations and the instrumental rhythmic glaze is a sampling to entertain and astound alike. However the social maturity of a Natalie Merchant is still in its punk stage and the promise hinted in this compilation lends itself to appreciating a mind set for engaged art. Here the individual speaks but the social commentary is not far behind. All in all this is a virtuoso performance that delineates the straits of the melancholy stagnation, of lovers' neurosis and plaintive wistfulness while nourishing an inner void that is reactionary and quirky.
Awesome. The 2005 self-released debut, "Slow the Rain" had introduced us to a singer of an artistic flair whose intangibles are commercial and popular, however defined by a poet's lissome language. In her follow-up she assures us that the great marketing she has been favored by is not the sole force behind a artist we ask many more brilliant tunes from. Not since Jewel and , Natalie Merchant, Jill Sobule and Sarah McLaughlin have we seen such intimate rapport with the music, while being implicated by such a commercial influx. On the verge of 30 she is ready for more than just a breakthrough, she will give us pearls of wisdom to grow with.

2 out of 5 stars

I love her, but all the songs sound the same December 31, 2007
9 out of 38 found this review helpful

I'm in love with Ingrid because she looks so amazing and has a personality that I really love, and she seems to be very intelligent. Also her voice is pleasant and interesting. I'd totally marry her. So I really wanted to like this album. However, all the songs really sound the same and they're not very interesting. This album sounds like one really long song rather than a bunch of different songs. I think she really needs better songs to sing. I hope she can learn how to write better songs and make a more interesting CD next time. Also, I found it very strange that she wrote songs about dying alone and "accepting me the way I am." Excuse me? Why would someone as lovely as her die alone? Also, it would take no effort to accept her as she is. She looks awesome! Perhaps she needs to work on her self esteem.

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