Album Notes

The usual first impression of Michelle can be summed up into four words - "Little girl, big voice."

Michelle Albano's music is a reflection of her personality -sometimes soft and sweet, sometimes sharp and dry humored, usually soulful, a contradiction of both pure strength and thoughtful indecision. Her words are her own and she instinctively chooses her melodies and rhythms to wrap around them. At the core of each of her songs is her deeply
powerful voice.

Classically trained on piano since the age of 5, Michelle began to write her own songs at age 15 and received many awards and accolades as a young performer. Immediately following high school and already making a name for herself, being featured in local papers and on radio shows, Michelle moved to New York City to attend NYU. Throughout those 4 years of school, she put together a band, continued to write new songs and play shows around New York, and took time to develop as an artist. In 2002, Michelle graduated with a degree in music education.

"Music had always been my identity. And then after college, it took sort of a back seat to my day job - which felt all wrong..." Michelle muses. "I felt the 'creative guilt' every day - thinking, I should be out there, I need to write more, I need to play more, I need to put this together...music has always been inside of me, and at that point, I knew that it was something I needed to give a real shot."

So in early 2004, armed with a fierce determination, a diverse collection of 11 self-penned songs, and the residuals checks she earned from singing the theme song to a Fox 5 Saturday morning cartoon, Michelle set out to record her first full-length record.

Brought up listening to the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Led Zeppelin, Tom Waits, Carole King, and Billy Joel, Michelle has developed a style all her own - a unique blend of r&b/pop/rock infused with soulful vocals, hooky melodies, and thought-provoking lyrics. "I did a lot of listening to other records while working on mine, and what I noticed on many of the older recordings that I've loved for years is that the instrumentation is built around the songs, rather than the other way around. It's amazing how a song with just one voice and just one instrument can be so much more powerful than a big giant track without a solid structure underneath it. That's what I strived for when creating my material for this record - I wanted to write songs that would still be songs even if they were stripped down to just piano and vocal."

Now at age 24 and on the heels of her debut release, Michelle is poised for 2005 to be a breakthrough year.