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HARMONIUM
(A&M)
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When ex-ballerina Vanessa Carlton tiptoed into American households in 2002 with "A Thousand Miles" — you remember, "If I could fall into the sky/Do you think time would pass me by?" — she won favor with smart but awkward teenage girls who didn’t see themselves in more evidently constructed teen-pop personalities like Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. If her confident piano playing and her relative willingness to undersell her material still place her slightly outside (what’s left of) the teen-pop firmament, Carlton’s obvious desire to display her artistic growth on Harmonium, her second studio album, is fully in keeping with the form’s typical career arc. Just as Aguilera used Stripped to air the emotional neuroses and PG-13 sexual kinks the market wouldn’t have tolerated on a debut, here Carlton delves into a darker, more adult world filled with "red wine on the eve of summer" and populated by girls "a day out from the county ICU." Her producer, Stephan Jenkins of erstwhile alt-rockers Third Eye Blind, gives her lots of handsome textures to work with, but Carlton still does best when she flecks her music with adolescent spirit. (Vanessa Carlton performs this Friday, March 18, at the Berklee Performance Center, 136 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, with Chad Perrone opening; call 617-931-2000.)
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