Christina Perri- Lovestrong.

Reviewed by The North Star

Song Time: 1 Hour and 36 Seconds (with bonus material) 

Lovestrong
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Christina Perri recently became a sensation in the music industry.  When her main song "Jar of Hearts" was featured on So You Think You Can Dance everyone flocked to their iTunes accounts and bought the song and everyone was begging for more!  Months later she slowly gave out some of her music with the songs "The Lonely", "Penguin", "Arms", and "Tragedy".  The other day she came out with her first CD, Lovestrong.  and I was so excited to review it because she is brilliant.  

Bluebird- 12/10- I LOVE this song so much.  It is about a girl who is in love with a boy and then he breaks up with the girl and the girl is still in love with the boy and she is trying to repair her broken heart.  This is the first song on her CD that I heard first once I bought the whole CD.  I had heard songs like "Arms" and "The Lonely" before because they were singles but Bluebird wasn't so it was technically the first song I heard off the CD.  I instantly fell in love with the Lovestrong and couldn't wait to her the rest of the CD.  Christina's vocals are beautiful and are somewhat angelic.  The way she sings is very soothing and really shows all the talent that she has.  The lyrics to this song are also very meaningful but complicated because they could be interpreted in a lot of different ways, which is always interesting to see how your friends or other people will take it.  In the end this is a great song and worth $0.99 and should be on everyone's music player.    

Arms- 9.5/10- This was one of the first songs listed as a single when she was releasing songs for hype  for the CD.  According to iTunes it is the biggest song off her album currently and I can see why that is.  This is a song about a girl who loves her boyfriend and she doesn't feel completely whole unless she is near him and he has his arms around her (hence the name of the song).  The song isn't really as cheesy as I am making it sound but the lyrics are very meaningful.  The beat of the song is really nice and it is one of those songs that you sing when no one is in the house and you are all by yourself.  This is a song I can imagine being played on the radio and finding its way onto millions of iPods around the world.  I prefer it when Christina sings the slower songs because I think it sounds better with her voice but this is still a great song and one to buy!   

Bang Bang Bang- 9.5/10- There is something about this song that I really love and I have no idea what that thing is.  The chorus is really well executed and I can't help but tap my foot whenever I hear it.  Most times I really want to get up and dance (as cliche as it sounds) like nobody is watching.  The great thing about this song is that when you listen to the song from the beginning you don't expect to get this huge powerful chorus, which is a pleasant surprise.  This one is about a girl and her boyfriend treated her not very nicely so they break up but she hears that his next boyfriend did the same thing he did to her to him and so she is singing about he got what he deserved in the end.  This is all around a great song and anyone who has ever gone out with a jerk can relate to this song and will hopefully love this song as much as I love it.  

Distance- 8.5/10- This is a song that I know a lot of people will be able to relate to this song.  It is about a girl trying to get over the last break-up that she had and she now has a new boyfriend and doesn't want to rush things because her heart is still healing.  This is a really pretty song but not one of my favorites.  This song is a duet and I am not sure who is singing the boy part but it is really nice and their voices blend quite nice together.  As usual her voice sounds perfect but the thing that I'm not crazy about in this song is the way the versus' sound.  The lyrics are fine but just something about them I just don't like; it might just be the way she sings the lines or the music in the background but other than that I'm not sure what it is.  The thing that I do love about this song the bridge is the bridge towards the end and the chorus when the guy and the girl do some major harmonies.  Sounds heavenly. 

Jar of Hearts- 11.99/10-   Will always be one of my favorite songs ever!  See this link: http://realteenreview.blogspot.com/2010/09/christina-perri-jar-of-hearts.html    

Mine- 7/10- I don't really like this song because personally I think that Christina isn't very good at singing fast songs and her voice is designed to sing the slower heart wrenching ballads.  I'm not sure if the girl in the song is the guy's wife or his mistress but I guess that is all about how you interpret the song.  The only parts of the song that I like are when it slows down and gets more intense and has a nice piano part to go along with it.  When they have this silly synthesized part of the song added in that doesn't sound like real instruments and kind of ruins the whole song.  This is one that I don't listen to very often and have only listened to it 5 times in a row to review the song and it is getting worse every time.  Not one to buy.  

Interlude- 8.5/10- I would just like to point out that this is the most RANDOM song that I have ever heard on a CD before, which doesn't necessarily mean that it is bad.  The song is 51 seconds of oh's and ah's with a beautiful piano part in the background.  I'm not sure why they recorded this song or why they put it on the track but it is really pretty and if you are looking for beautiful voices singing some oh's and ah's this is the song you should buy.   

Penguin- 9.5/10- This is a very cute song and reminds me a lot of the summer.  Now if you haven't listened to this song you might be looking at the song title wondering what a song called penguin must be about.  I thought that too but I didn't question it because it was a Christina Perri song and I love almost all her songs.  I didn't quite get why it was called Penguin until Dream listened to it and enlightened me as to why it might be called Penguin. The theory of this song is that it is about a couple who are deeply in love and have a great relationship making them best friends and he is her penguin because penguins mate once in a lifetime and then that is it.  I really enjoy listening to this song and after listening to it I also have the line "Baby it's fate, not luck" stuck in my head and it won't come out for a good 2 days.  In short, this song is adorable and one I think a lot of people will love and I can see it on the radio in the future.   

Miles- 6.8/10- This song is just OK.  I don't really love it but I don't hate it either and it is in that awkward space where I don't really know where to place it.  It is a beautiful song, no doubt about it but the lyrics aren't as strong as her other songs and seem kind of cheesy.  She is singing about how she is in love with her boyfriend but he wants to break-up with her and she will do anything to keep him. The fact that this girl can't survive without a guy in her life is a little silly.  If it was her husband that would be a different story but the mood and other lyrics in the song sounds really young and as if they had only been dating a short time. The lyric that really gives that away is "Don't count the miles, count the I love you's". The song is the weakest one on her CD but I guess not every artist can have every song be a hit.    

The Lonely- 11.99/10- This song is sheer brillance!!! It was one of the first songs released as a promo for the CD and I'm so glad that they did that because it just made me that much more excited for the CD to come out.  This little ditty is about a girl who has just broken up with her significant other and how she can't live a day without him and every day spent apart the loneliness slowly consumes her.  It is kind of a depressing song but it is beautiful and is one of those songs you get super addicted to and can't stop listening to for days on end.  When you listen to it the mood of the song is set so strongly that you can almost see the entire music video unravelling in your head...or maybe that is just me. Anyways, this is a great song and will be one of my favorites until the end of time and should be on everyone's iPod no matter what!  

Sad Song- 9.5/10- The interesting thing about this song is that Christina wrote this song back in 2008, sang it on her YouTube channel and posted it only to be able to record it on her first CD.  This shows that she has always had talent and was just waiting to be discovered for quite a while.  Back to the song, it is passionate and lovely. It is a little more uptempo than some of her other songs (meaning the beat) but the lyrics are a little on the down side as usual. This song is about a girl that lives far away from her boyfriend or feels distant from him, I'm not quite sure which one and she is writing a song for him to tell him how she feels.  The chorus of the song is one that makes you want to sing along but my favorite part of the song is the bridge because it is something different.  This song is on a little bit of the longer side which is fine but you can only listen to the same verse over and over only so many times so the bridge is a nice little break.  Any Christina Perri lover would love this song and other people but especially people who really like her style of music. 

Tragedy- 10/10- This song really represents what Christina Perri is all about and what new things she brings to the table.  She rights lyrics that the common person can relate to because it doesn't sugarcoat anything.  That might kind of sound a little down but it is true and that is what I love about her and her music.  This song is about a girl who was humiliated by her boyfriend and is now breaking up with him, simply because he was a jerk.  Her vocals are spot on and from listening to the recording you can really hear her getting into the song and expressing her feelings even if it had never happened to her before.  There is really nothing bad to say about this song and everyone should buy it because it is worth the money.  

Backwards (Bonus Track)- 8.5/10- This song is quite mellow and relaxing.  You don't even have to listen to the lyrics to enjoy the song.  The first time I listened to this song I didn't listen to the words I just laid back and enjoyed the arrangement and how nice everything blended together.  This song is about how a girl's town doesn't take any risks (I imagine it to be a town where everyone knows everyone's business) and she is finally taking risks and crossing lines that haven't been crossed before.  The great thing about this song is that it doesn't sound like a song with this take over feel in just the lyrics alone so when I actually read the lyrics I realized how much deeper the song is after examining it a little farther.  A great song for the summer and relaxing around the house or at the beach.     

Black + Blue (Bonus Track)- 9/10- Quirky, fun and interesting are just some of the adjectives that you could use to describe this song.  This is one of those songs that you feel yourself listening to over and over again but you have no idea why you are doing it in the first place.  I am currently trying to learn all of the lyrics so it can be one of the songs to sing in the car but I really don't have an explanation as to why I like this song, you just have to listen to it and see how you react.  

My Eyes (Bonus Track)- 8.4/10- This is probably the most depressing of all Christina's songs.  It is about someone who is trying to close their eyes to sleep, shut out the world and simply stop seeing but they won't shut.  This song is pretty good but the one problem that I have with it is the arrangement that plays while she is not singing.  It sounds like the music that plays in the background of a low-budget horror film (which is never good).  Other than that I really enjoy this song and as always the vocals are spot on.  Even though this song deals with a depressing topic it is addictive and I can't help but keep listening to it.  This isn't one that you need to go buy right away but is a nice addition if you decide to buy the whole deluxe addition of the CD.  

Real Teen Rating~A: Worth Buying!