iTunes Free Single Review: Christina Perri – Bluebird

Atlantic Records waved its top hat and magic wand and voila, the virtually unknown Christina Perri appears on Jay Leno and Conan, and in Target’s impulse buy racks.

iTunes supplied another pop song from a “wide variety of genres” for this weeks free single. “Bluebird,” off Perri’s debut album “Lovestrong” has not garnered the success of her independently released single, “Jar of Hearts,” but does display a cross-section of her stylistic uses of acoustic guitar a piano.

“Bluebird,” the opening track of her first full-length studio album, is masterfully void of natural emotion. Perri supplements authentic sentimentality for fun vocal arrangements. The introduction showcases just enough rasp in her voice to peak the listener’s interest, followed by a wondering harmony that fails to demonstrate the singer/songwriters range.

“How the hell does a broken heart / Get back together when it’s torn apart” begins Perri’s narration of a lovelorn relationship, perhaps a memoir of her 18 month marriage two years prior.

The strongest attributes of “Bluebird” are the lyrics themselves. The symbolic heartbeat lyric “Ba ba ba” is used throughout as she asks how to teach her heart to beat again. Perri symbolically closes the bridge with another heartbeat aria, possibly offering a remedy to her broken heart, “What if when she comes over I am in your arms? / Taking all I want from you again / Ba ba ba ba.”

Perri found the spotlight after her song “Jar of Hearts” gained recognition on Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” in 2010. Shortly after its initial exposure the song charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard’s Hot Digital Songs and Perri was signed to Atlantic within a month. “Jar of Hearts” is her only song to chart to date.

The tattooed 24 year-old certainly has attitude to spare. “To thine own self be true” adorns Perri’s arm, while “LA” decorates her shoulder. Perri was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA. and didn’t relocate to LA until her 21st birthday.