Melinda Ortner - I wanna be ok

In 2011 Californian singer/songwriter Melinda Ortner was the grand prize winner of MTV’s “Steal The Spotlight” contest, and was chosen as one of 15 songwriters of the year for ASCAP’s Johnny Mercer Project. She was also semi-finalist for the IMWSC Songwriting Contest while her song “Something You Said” was featured on STAR 98.7.com’s indie playlist. Since then she's been playing gigs, and working to raise money to record her debut album. Now the album, 'I wanna be ok' is recorded and has just been released.

How to describe this album? It's a mixture of Pop, folk, rock and indie, so it's probably going to have to fall into the vague "alternative" category. That's not really much of a help in getting an idea what to expect, so looking at it in a bit more detail, the main thing is the vocals which are lovely - smooth and pop-like, but with an underlying harder edge. The music varies a lot - sometimes very electronic, at other times very much pop, or rock, but mainly in the pop-rock spectrum.

Brief comments on a couple of tracks..

Opening track 'Wait another day' is a nice gentle song with some nice string arrangements

'Jezebella' starts with a great rocky guitar riff before moving into an upbeat pop-rock song.

It's a really enjoyable album that's well worth checking out.

Track listing:

1. Wait another day
2. I wanna be ok
3. Caught in the middle
4. Jezebella
5. Another chance
6. The beauty in me
7. Sweet little lies
8. Somethin' sorry
9. Say those things
10. When you've got it all
11. Strangers
12. Maybe