Michelle Branch Has A Long Future Ahead Of Her

Andy Wang of Orlando Weekly weighed in on how he feels Michelle Branch has a longer term future ahead of her than her pop peers. “Branch has expressed some frustration in the past about being mistaken for Vanessa Carlton, and it’s probably true that she’ll be lumped in with Vanessa and Avril Lavigne when 25th-century historians study antiquated two-dimensional websites to make sense of the she-mo sweepstakes at the beginning of the millennium,” Wang said. “But the differences are easy to parse: Michelle doesn’t play piano or write total non-sequitur lyrics like Vanessa. Unlike Avril, Branch broke through by writing her own music, which held up well enough that it didn’t need rewriting. Branch has no gimmick. Carlton has to move on from traveling the world on a piano, and Lavigne’s teen-rebellion act won’t work when she’s old enough to drink (or vote, for that matter). Branch can look forward to a longer career arc that doesn’t require a massive ‘transformation.’ This is fortunate for her, given that when the pop audience adores someone, they don’t want him or her to change.”