HUNTERGIRL

                                                 "Ain't About You"

                                                 19 Recordings/BMG

Since her runner up finish on season 20 of American Idol, HunterGirl’s mainstream releases have given us an ode to her small-town upbringing on “Hometown Out Of Me,” while turning up her sentimental side on the very well-received “Lonely Outta You.”

But her newest release, “Ain’t About You,” is without a doubt her most powerful, and most personal song to date.

“You always used to smile when you held your guitar, but now it feels like a reminder that you ain’t got too far,” immediately personalizes the lyric to surround the soft pace of the instrumentation as she vulnerably moves through what is essentially a measure of therapy that helped her overcome one of the toughest, down moments of her life.

Questioning her abilities and strength to continue chasing a dream that was feeling stagnant, she takes us into those very difficult moments within each of the verses, playing off the times when the heart and the head are in constant battle with each other as she wonders when it will be time for her big break, finds all the reasons why it won’t work out, and tries to figure out what she’s doing wrong.

However, with a perfectly placed waver embedded into the cry of her voice, she expertly flips the script through each of the three choruses to present herself with the simple reminders of why she needs to keep pushing forward:

“What if there’s a little girl who needs a song, telling her she’s beautiful when the world tells her she’s wrong?”

“What if there’s a little boy who needs a safe place to cry when the whole world says suck it up just cause he’s a guy?”

“What if there’s a heart that needs some hope and they find it in the word that you almost never wrote?”

Playing off the thought-provoking question of the hook, “what if it ain’t about you,” the bridge then adds incredible depth when she stamps the exclamation point on why you need to get back up, shake off the dust, and preserve, striking a strong message of hope to herself, but skillfully transcending it through the speakers with truth-filled encouragement that resonates with us all:

“If you throw it all away

Your telling God He made a mistake

But He never makes ‘em

Maybe you should have some patience

There’s purpose in the wait”

We all overthink the dreams we’re chasing, the impact that we’re making, and we do our best to talk ourselves out of the path when the plan seems impossible. Huntergirl softly wraps her arms around us to not only tell us that we’re not alone in our struggles, but to remind us that what we’re chasing after is part of His bigger story and not our own.

(Review Written By: Jeffrey Kurtis)

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