Female singer-songwriters often get put in the same tent even when they have very little in common outside of their gender and their way with a simile. The female singer willing to bear her soul to a catchy hook has been a part of the pop landscape for decades from Carole King to Sara Bareilles and thousands in between. One of the most influential singer-songwriters of the last twenty years gets the "Legacy Edition" treatment this week from Sony, while a newcomer releases a highly anticipated debut album.

Alice in No Man's Land by Mandi Perkins

The newcomer is a talented young woman named Mandi Perkins, who has built a following by embracing alternate ways to get her music out there like featuring it in MTV programming and promoting it through a well-trafficked MySpace page. Teenagers - still the main audience for all music - don't listen to radio any more and MTV doesn't play videos, so singer-songwriters are going to have to find new content delivery systems to get their tunes to the masses. The old-fashioned techniques like relentless touring and promotion are still there, but artists like Perkins are finding new ways to find new fans. Perkins has been building quite a reputation with what is reportedly an electric live show and there are signs of that high-voltage performer in her debut recording, Alice in No Man's Land, a reasonably good debut that ultimately falls short of greatness by sounding both too much like other artists who do it better and too repetitive. Could Mandi Perkins break out and become the next pop star? Possibly. There are a couple of catchy potential singles on Alice in No Man's Land and the music video on her MySpace page for "Who I Am" deserves at least a few spins on whomever plays videos nowadays to see if it catches on, but, after a strong opening, the entirety of No Man's Land is a disappointment.

Perkins starts off with a pop music blast with three potential singles, opening the CD with her best track, "Why Pretend". With a little bit of Avril Lavigne punk-pop sound, Perkins makes immediately clear that she's going to give the listener something heartfelt but catchy at the same time. And the structure of her song-writing becomes clear in the opening track with a softer delivery on the verses, one that sometimes calls to mind post-10,000 Maniacs Natalie Merchant (especially on "Who I Am"), that then soars into a chorus closer to recent pop work like Lavigne or Kelly Clarkson. The hooks on the first three tracks are there and, honestly, in today's singles-driven market, the "question trio" (the first three songs are "Why Pretend", "Why (You Confuse Me)", and "Who I Am") could be enough to make Mandi Perkins a star.

The problem comes as Alice in No Man's Land progresses past its opening act. There's very little in the way of memorable hooks in the next ten tracks and the songwriting gets incredibly repetitive. Songwriting that sounds heartfelt at first starts to feel a little like something that a machine programmed to write a female singer-songwriter track would produce. Pop song lyrics are a fine line to walk. If the hook's good enough, it's easy to forgive lines like "I looked in the mirror to see/It's my face now staring back at me." The hook is rarely good enough on the second half of Perkins' debut. Even more damaging to Alice in No Man's Land is the fact that far too much of the CD sounds nearly exactly the same. I like what Perkins is trying to do with Alice in No Man's Land, joining a group of talented people that she's clearly been inspired by and bearing her soul to do so, but I'm hoping her good intentions result in better material the next time she goes back in the studio.

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy: Legacy Edition by Sarah McLachlan

One person who clearly inspired Mandi Perkins is the legendary Sarah McLachlan, whose Fumbling Towards Ecstasy gets a special edition treatment this week on its 15th anniversary. (Yes, I feel old too). A decade-and-a-half down the road, Ecstasy sounds even better than it did in the mid-'90s when it was one of the biggest CDs of its day. As someone who was in college during McLachlan's breakthrough, when "Possession", "Good Enough", "Hold On", "Ice Cream", and more were being played at every coffee house, dorm room, and theatre rehearsal on campus, there's a chance that I've heard Fumbling more than any recording of its era. Amazingly, it's held up great. If anything, Fumbling has gotten even more impressive with time as its gone from "popular hit machine" to "classic". Fans will be happy to see it get a special treatment, complete with The Freedom Sessions on a second disc and DVD material on a third.

My love for Fumbling is clear, so what I'm going to say next clearly comes from a fan's perspective - where's the new stuff? Fumbling and Freedom Sessions were available before and it's been FAR too long since we heard a new song from McLachlan. Since 2003's Afterglow, all we've gotten is a soundtrack offering ("Ordinary Miracle" from Charlotte's Web), a few collaborations, a B-sides release, and a Christmas album. Where's the new CD? Sarah did have a kid last year, which can make getting in the studio difficult, but there's a part of this Legacy Edition of Fumbling that feels like a missed opportunity. Were there no demos or alternates left in the studio? How about live versions? She performed these songs a thousand or more times and there must have been some unique live material that could have made this a stand-out release simply because McLachlan fans are dying for something new and almost all of them already have Fumbling and Freedom Sessions. To be fair, the version of Fumbling in the Legacy Edition does now list the piano version of "Possession" on the track list (does listing a hidden track really count as something new?) and, far more interestingly, The Freedom Sessions includes a second alternate version of "Hold On". It's great stuff, but fans who are so hungry for something new from Sarah would have eaten up any kind of material, even the most second-rate, B-side, alternate version stuff and it feels like an opportunity was missed to provide it.

I often think about the young people who get to hear amazing albums of my youth for the first time. We all have that experience of childhood - hearing something truly amazing for the first time. For me, I'll never forget my father's dusty LPs of Simon & Garfunkel's Bookends and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For some youngster out there, they'll hear Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy and truly be changed like I was when I first heard what I now consider classic recordings. I remembered Fumbling as being a hugely popular and very good CD. Now I realize that it's a classic, one of the best releases of the '90s and more than deserving of the Legacy Edition treatment.