Undiscovered vs. Willa Was Here vs. Paris REVEAL DAY 3

After brutal chops and a surprising amount of Brooke Hogan songs left, it's now it's on to the final day...Day 3 of the Undiscovered vs. Willa Was Here vs. Paris rate reveal.

Here's the Top 10 competing for a place on the podium and ultimately the winner of the Unintentionally RATESist, The THOT That Counts 2: Revenge of the Sequeloo.

Undiscovered: About Us, All About Me, Letting Go & Crazy Love

Willa Was Here: I Wanna Be Bad, Did Ya’ Understand That & Ooh Ooh


Paris: Fightin’ Over Me, I Want You & Nothing In This World.


Great...well mostly great candidates as the remaining 10 songs score no lower than an 8, so the first to get punched out in the Top 10 is...

10. Brooke Hogan - Letting Go: 8 she might be getting a damn near fatality laden treatment but at least this schlock of "urban"/pop is one of the better or more fitting production choices for Brooke's limited but committed vocals. FUN FACT: most of the standout tracks of "urban"/pop of this era were either playing one of these two extremes; sex or breaking up. This is a great example of a breakup track working so well in this sect of pop music.

I'm sorry, did I say getting punched out first? I meant to say getting punched out two more times in one go...

9. Brooke Hogan - About Us: 9 the only charting Brooke Hogan single can't make the Top 5...ouch. As I've said before, Undiscovered is a product of its time for better and especially worse. On this song, Brooke herself plays less a Britney Spears knockoff and more of an Ashanti wannabe considering she's the hook girl on her own song. All of this was culturally kosher at the time considering she was the product of the "white girl goes urban" trend of 2004-2007. The song itself kind of sucks but is enveloped in a catch 22 of nostalgia; in this case it's both a welcome trip for the pink Motorola RAZR sporting teens of the mid 00s and also a "what was I thinking? Oh yeah, this song is cute."

For her 3rd chincheck in a row, she at least kicks off the 10s...

8. Brooke Hogan - Crazy Love: 10 the Japanese edition bonus track is better than 14(!) of the song on Undiscovered. Production wise, this is the best track. Singing wise, this is Jessica Simpson but without the wasted potential Jessica had.
Oddly enough this is one of the strongest tracks on the album but considering the parent album I would NOT want to be the father.

She's off the hook until later in the results, but who gets the chinchecks in her place?

7. Paris Hilton - I Want You: 10 losing one of its last 3 songs first, Paris loses one of the few gems on this album. It samples "Grease" by Frankie Valli. Initially this scared me as I didn't know how a Storch executive produced joint would incorporate this. The result is actually quite nice even with Paris' limited at best delivery. Her vocals are fluffy and nondescript enough to be something close to signature.
*Think like an infamous Daria line: "Sometimes your shallowness is so thorough, it's almost like depth."*

6. Paris Hilton - Fightin' Over Me: 10 and the 2nd hit in a row lands to the best of the non-single dreck on Paris. Nothing screams "urban" pop in the mid 00s like rap features for a pop girl's debut effort. The only difference between Paris and Brooke Hogan is that Paris has money/Warner Bros on her side to get big names like Fat Joe & Jadakiss on her song.
Paris is relegated to the Ashanti role of hook girl on her own song, to our benefits mostly.


Say hello to the Top 5: All About Me, Nothing In This World, Ooh Ooh, I Wanna Be Bad and Did Ya' Understand That

with a 3:1:1 ratio, could Willa Was Here pull a podium sweep?


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.NOPE
5. Willa Ford - Did Ya' Understand That: 10 after another trip along the "coast", Willa Was Here finally takes its first hit of the Top 10. Did Ya' Understand that was the album's 2nd single but failed to chart. This is the beginning of Willa's ambition being a bit unrealized with how fast she delivers the lyrics [especially for a bad girl bubblegum pop act]. The album version and video edit are radically different in that there's a really dumb, half-assed attempt at a rock remix of this song or is some randomly placed nonsense.
The thing is, Ford shows deep vocal potential even if it's not obvious but more on that later.

Missing out on the podium is...
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let's see....
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the podium can only have 3...so that's 2 for Willa...
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1 for Paris...
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yup, 2 for Willa, 1 for Paris and none for Brooke Hogan

4. Brooke Hogan - All About Me: 10 and it's all over as Undiscovered is officially slain right before the podium [at least SHE made the Top 10 with her best material unlike Beyonce with Dangerously in Love]
Oddly enough this is Brooke's strongest song on the album. Again, Brooke Hogan before this album, during this album and well after this album is no singer but she knew how to commit.

Now it's time to see just what the hell Brooke Hogan and co. were thinking by making that bad album. How bad is it?

Undiscovered: 4.6 with rounding

In a stunning display of failure, Brooke Hogan's first album is now the lowest scoring album to date and that's WITH rounding for Unintentionally RATESist. What made it the way it was? Well...I'm saying this was a half-assed venture right from who released her album to the 3rd rate cuts she was getting passed off as songs "meant for her".

Being a product of its time is the paramount thing to understand regarding Brooke Hogan's music career [or at least around the "successful" album with charting single which...yuuhuu, pay attention.] A lot of it was badly made by the hot-shit producer at the time Scott Storch and the direction of it just made Brooke seem more faceless as a singer than she was going to be.

Despite her 2nd album actually being worse than this one by a fucking mile and a half, its ability to show off one glorious moment for her music ["Falling" ft. Stack$] showed that Undiscovered did have previously undiscovered potential for Brooke to be a...well a one hit wonder but with a better song.

If "All About Me" showed off her best on this effort...it just means that needless trendhopping can work against someone no matter how little talent they have even if they make up for it with commitment to the dreck with their name to it.

She tried her best, but we all know there is far better. The less said about this album, the better.

Now, let's crown the bronze medalist of the 2nd ever rate for Unintentionally RATESist...
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3rd place...Willa Ford - Ooh Ooh: 10 taking the bronze is a promotional single from the album that failed to gain any momentum. One problem of Willa Was Here is that all the intended singles are at the front of the album. In this case, once the listener gets their kicks with the other songs, they might not get to the other tracks. It's playing the strongest hand right out of the gate.
As for the song itself, it's a great showcase of the registers Ford is able to hit.


Now onto an artist's best single that failed to chart and the other artist's whose single was her only charting single...Paris vs. Willa...who wins?
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RUNNER-UP: Paris Hilton - Nothing In This World: 10 simply put, this is Paris' best song. Despite tanking on the charts, VH1 Top 20 Countdown played this damn near every week of its allotted run. Making the best of her limited as shit vocals, the song actually presents Paris as a serious pop singer with bubblegum pop working in her favor.

Now with Paris being shown the door and not the Arc D' Triumph in the form of a slightly recycled writeup.

Paris: 5.8

I'm going to keep it brief, just like Warner Bros Records did with her major label music career [before Lil' Wayne fucked it all up].

Even musically, it was done before it was over for Paris' music career because her album came right at the saturation of "urban" pop music in 2006. Scott Storch, Fat Joe, Jadakiss all made appearances on it and despite the album not being that "urban", Hilton was still a part of the trend of "white girl goes urban" in a time where velour tracksuits, grills, microskirts, a bad girl attitude, Chinese Laundry heels and other bad mid 00s fashion trends reigned supreme.

This is proof that money cannot buy worthwhile longevity even if you have a mix of new money origins and Warner Bros Records money to boot.


WINNER: Willa Ford - I Wanna Be Bad: 11 that means the successful single from Willa Was Here takes the cake as winner of Unintentionally RATESist's 2nd ever rate. It can be proven over and over again that this is Willa's best song. Her vocals for all of the vocoder/processing are actually pleasant.
Because this was 2001 and this was the beginning of "urban" influenced pop, a nameless rapper just "cool" enough to exist on a track is featured. Royce da 5'9'' is fine on this but still a hit or miss non-descript addition overall.

Now for a proper, slightly recycled eulogy for Willa Was Here's passing...

Willa Was Here: 6.2

As I've mentioned before in her entry for The THOT That Counts, the series, Willa Ford was weirdly ahead of her time but still unable to make it past the first album. The reason for this?

If Paris was the result of overexposure by way of reality TV fame during the oversaturation point of blatant skank culture, Willa Was Here is the result of too much, too soon and weirdly being ahead of her time. The album also suffers from the artist having confronted her identity in music on her debut. If you're asking "who?" when you see "Willa Was Here", then you already have an idea as to what I'm talking about.

The bit of backstory that adds a unique mythos to the album is best remembered through the beginnings of her career to the track "Tired". Willa Ford started off in the industry all incognito as Mandah [like her real name Amanda Lee Williford, but all...doofy sounding.] Originally signed to who cares MCA Records, she's dropped, ends up on Atlantic records and has something of a break when she gets a song on the soundtrack to Pokémon: The First Movie [track 10, "Lullaby".] Other famed pop acts almost exclusive to the 1999-2001s like N*SYNC, B*Witched, 98 Degrees, Aaron Carter and Vitamin C were on the album as well.

Two names that also appeared on it were Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. This is the seed planted for Willa's bad taste in her mouth about pop music in general, let alone Spears.
After the soundtrack album, she ends up signing a deal with the Atlantic Records imprint, Lava Records and changes her name from Mandah to Willa Ford. However, the reason for her name change was to avoid confusion with another blonde pop-tart named Mandy Moore. See where the identity crisis comes in?
That brings us to the track "Tired" which on the surface is a thinly veiled diss track against Britney from someone who wishes they could be as big as her in 2001.

See, that's just the face value interpretation. What "Tired" ends up doing is giving an unusually transparent look into a budding talent that's already had enough of the pop music machine and pretty much risked their career telling the listener "hey, here's the skinny". There's two major problems with that: 1. This is coming from someone who despite having experience on one album before this one, is on her debut. How much know how did you really manage to get to where you feel to enlighten us on the fact that the pop machine is a hellhole where individuality mostly goes to die? 2. This is underestimating the public's perception of the music industry as a whole. Even if Ford really did gain so much perspective, it's kind of an open secret; we know Britney lipsyncs and that pop as a whole is really not the best place to get artistic merit on the first try in 2001.

It isn't to say Ford was the worst thing ever to happen to pop. This is also not to say playing sex on the first try is inherently a limiting move; for instance, Lady Gaga played up levels of sex on her debut, but she has the material to back it up and she's a weirdo; meaning there's something to play off of and keep people interested. Willa Was Here showed Willa's true self but neither that nor her intended second album, SexySexObsessive, was really going to build anything off of that. Hell, even the Pussycat Dolls struggled to maintain a true pop identity even though their image was branded in a burlesque troop kind of sex.

The point is that Willa Was Here is ultimately the result of an overambitious pop tart in the 00s trying to make a statement of being a bad girl even though she had no idea how the hell it should sound. Not entirely a Britney but more of a further misguided Stripped by Christina Aguilera.

Point blank version: Willa Ford probably deserved better if she had a touch of development or something to build off of because something was there.