Melinda Ortner
Album: I Wanna Be Ok
Label: Ziggy
Tracks: 12
Website: https://soundcloud.com/melindaortner

Based on the US West coast, a lot of Melinda Ortner's early songs came to Europe via the movie industry, including via an independent Finish movie that also launched her into the charts in Finland. I would suggest that her most heard song still remains, "Heartbeats" which pretty much reached a global audience via "American Pie:Book Of Love". "I Wanna Be OK" gives Melinda, the opportunity to have her music recognised in its own right.

Despite being called, "I Wanna Be OK" the thrust of the album has more ambition than that, at it's core, this is a dream chasing album. Melinda doesn't just want to be ok, she wants to be riding high, name bathed in light and right across the board, career, emotionally, you name it.

That said this is not the album of an egotistical diva, 'cause the other aspect that comes out through the songs is that the route to that success is via gold old fashioned graft and talent, the songs are about taking control and doing it, not about hunting down the lucky break.

Melinda is a singer-songwriter that has grown up in the 21st century, mainly in LA. Her songs have those big production values, even when, on songs like, "Another Chance" the focus is on her and an acoustic guitar, though even that song drifts towards string laden backing and simple drum routines.

"I Wanna Be OK" is a manifesto of how Melinda Ortner wants her world to be and there's a lot of that dream that's worth sharing. Sure the pop/soft rock stylings give it a polished, almost superficial edge, but that feels right, because it's as much a product of the life of the singer as a gritty song from industrial slums would be for a Middlesbrough lass.

Neil King