Samantha Jade - "What You've Done To Me"

Samantha Jade won the 2012 Australian version of the reality television show, X Factor. It was the first one of those types of shows that I had watched right through and there were a number of extraordinary artists vying for the title as the show entered its final weeks and any one of them would have been a worthy winner. However, Samantha's versatility and very professional performances over those final weeks made her stand out as the best of the bunch by far. For someone who found herself in the bottom voting group a number of times throughout the show, it was a brilliant turnaround for her to shine the way she did and finally get the public vote as the show's winner (and demonstrates how little there is between success and failure).

Samantha is originally from Perth, but has moved to the Eastern States to further her music career and here's one fellow who's hoping that she'll make it big time. She possesses a wonderful voice and is so charismatic on stage that I can't see any possible way that this songbird could fail. But then you know how the music industry is, so you never know. She had an opportunity some years prior to X Factor when she recorded an album for Jive Records (America) but the single from the album was never released and the deal fell through. There's been a bit of controversy surrounding her earlier album ("The Golden Touch") being released as Samantha's win on X Factor was announced and I've had a listen to it and it's not too bad an effort.

Since her early brush with fame, Samantha hadn't had much luck in breaking into the music industry, but I think there are a lot of Australians who are hoping that X Factor win catapults her into something big this time. She can sing pop, she can sing rock, she can sing ballads and she can sing just about anything she damn well chooses to - and she just looks so cool when she's on stage performing - she is one very talented lady indeed.

Onto today's songs - the first one, "What You've Done To Me," is the first release from her self titled album and it's a well crafted pop song with not too many lyrics to learn and it's an easy one to sing along with (as long as you don't sing the way I do). The second song that I've chosen, "Breakeven," is a cover of the song that was a hit in 2008 for the Irish band, The Script. She also performed the song on the X Factor and I reckon she did a better job with it than the Script.

Have a listen and see what you think .....

Samantha's WWW Page