Three Rivers Arts Festival

Ingrid Michaelson

14 May 2010 by Ross Scarano in Music

Pop success can no longer be determined by the Billboard charts alone. Now, to find out who’s really doing big things, you need to check out which albums Starbucks is plugging, who is racing up the iTunes charts, or what artist is finding regular work via primetime television. By these new, Internet age standards, Ingrid Michaelson is Britney Spears (minus all the irrationality and excess). Grey’s Anatomy, everyone’s favorite hospital melodrama, used 9 different songs from Michaelson’s catalogue in 9 different episodes. One Tree Hill used 4. iTunes users love Michaelson – her singles regularly climb into the charts and hang there. This particular type of exposure makes Michaelson a unique variety of pop star, the kind whose music is instantly recognizable, but the artist’s name and face less so. Thankfully, the 2010 Three Rivers Arts Festival will correct that by bringing Ingrid Michaelson to Point State Park on June 10.

That Britney Spears comparison, upon further reflection, seems a bit much. Ultimately, it is unfair to both women. Here are the ways these two female pop stars careers do not overlap:

• Michaelson possesses a fine, clean voice she occasionally makes quirky and cute with a bit of vibrato. Spears mostly sounds like she’s singing through a very sophisticated dehumidifier.
• Michaelson attended Binghamton University where she majored in theater and sang with a co-ed a cappella group. Spears attended the Mickey Mouse Club.
• Michaelson plays piano, guitar and occasionally the ukulele. She also writes her own songs, peppering the lyrics with clever bits of wordplay that you might describe as “precious.” Spears – well, she has her own perfume – that counts for something, right?

We didn’t hear from Spears in 2009, but, thankfully, Ingrid Michaelson dropped a record. Everybody, her third album,  finds the singer/songwriter moving away from dreary coffee shop laments into sunnier territory. Apparently a career in music makes for happier times – Michaelson sounds positively jubilant here, primly pounding her piano keys to reach the highest of pop highs. Skeptics should proceed directly to “The Chain” for proof. There’s a word for sounds like that: grand.

Ingrid Michaelson, aside from being a successful female pop artist, shares perhaps no qualities with Britney Spears. When she performs at this year’s Three Rivers Arts Festival, there will be no lavish dance numbers, no costume changes, no glitter explosions or fire or simulated thunder storms (according to Wikipedia, Spears’ last tour had all these things). No, for her June 10 appearance, Ingrid Michaelson will only play her music, and she will play it sweetly and perhaps the audience will sing along to the songs they love best. And that will be enough.

Ingrid Michaelson
7:30pm, Thursday, June 10
Dollar Bank Stage at Point State Park