Grapevine musician Kaleigh Sheffield’s new album, “Who Do You Think You Are,” surprised me in all of the right ways, and gained Sheffield a new fan. The album features pop-styled songs influenced by many different music genres. The album was produced by Tim Miner, who has produced songs for Journey, Steve Perry, Justin Bieber, and many other popular recording artists. Sheffield wrote 10 of the 12 songs on the album, Miner the author of the other two. The album features Grammy Award-winning Christian music artist, Israel Houghton, Claude McKnight, and pianist and composer Ian Oakley. Sheffield’s goal for the album was to create a “good, fun, clean pop” sound. The majority of the songs on her album have dual-meanings, one of them being spiritual.

The first song on Sheffield’s album, titled “Who Do You Think You Are” as well, is about finding yourself and not letting anyone else hinder that. The songs, like many of her others, features a heavy bass line. Sheffield uses vocal overlapping and back-up singers, which creates a spiritual choral feel, and resembles a jazz style of music. The song is repetitive, and with so many different things going on at once nearly overpowering each other, it can be hard to focus on. However, the song is very catchy, and without any school-prohibited material, is fun to sing in the car.

“Not Today” is another song featured on the album. Sheffield was inspired to write the song after having a “junk” day which she was determined to overcome, including the lyrics, “Today is my own. I’m stepping up on my own.” This track uses an even heavier bass line, and resembles an alternative rock sound. This song also has a choral sound, but with the addition of a modern twist trough the manipulation of Sheffield’s voice, removing the common, boring repetitive sound I was afraid of hearing.

“Awaken” still surprises with yet another song resembling a different style. Its sound is a modern twist on the classic 1980’s love ballads. Sheffield’s inspiration for this song came from her sophomore college roommate, Asja, who was a beautiful young woman from Estonia. Asja turned down the many men that fawned over her, and this drove Sheffield crazy. This is definitely portrayed in the song through several of the lines, including, “I’m so afraid of loving you,” and, “Awaken, love.” The song begins with a piano, and builds up with the use of drums, a guitar, bass, and, unsurprisingly, a choir-like sound. It has a very catchy beat, and is something I imagine would be played on the radio. Sheffield has a very strong, powerful voice, much like Adele, who is one of her inspirations.

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Kaleigh Sheffield was a much needed change to the pop music industry.

— Avery Cummings

Sheffield’s website  opened Oct. 25. The website does not have a great layout, the home page being a picture of her album and below it a large empty space that takes several scrolls to finally reach new content. The bottom of the home page features Sheffield’s biography. The website if very amateur, but does contain her latest activity on the social media sites Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Visitors can create an account and join the website to receive the latest news and events for Sheffield. After hearing the same common pop for the past several years, Kaleigh Sheffield was a much needed change to the pop music industry.

The album is a nice, family friendly change from modern pop music, and definitely reached her goal of creating a “good, fun, clean pop” sound, with professional quality. The album has not yet been released, but is set to be released within the next week. It was a nice change to find a somewhat local musician with such an amazing mind and beautiful music. People of all ages, religious or not, and fans of most music genres will enjoy this incredible album.