When Maria Kanellis announced all those months ago that she would be releasing her own music, I’m not going to lie, I didn’t take her seriously. Usually when people cross over between media platforms, the result is contrived and lacks substance. Just because an actor is great at acting, it doesn’t mean they’re going to make a great musical artist and vice versa. The likes of Paris Hilton, for example, has tried crossing over from well, whatever it is that Paris Hilton does, to music and yielded little success. It seems like these celebrities think it would be ‘cool’ and ‘fun’ to put a record out, not to mention it would add a few more zeroes to their bank balance. However, in just one chat with Maria, I could feel her passion and investment in her music. Everyone has that passion project they’d love to do but probably never accomplish because it seems so surreal, so you have to admire Kanellis’ bravado in making one of her many passion projects come to life.
The four-track EP opens with the track ‘Alice in Wonderland’ named after the Lewis Carroll novel recently brought to screen by Tim Burton. From the title alone, already you can imagine playful lyrics about tea parties and shrinking potions and that’s exactly what you get. The song opens with references to the Queen of Hearts and a rabbit hole before seguing into a thumping chorus with Kanellis chanting, “Off with my head,” chastising herself for falling in love and ‘losing her head’, among other things. The song has a cabaret vibe to it, you can just imagine it being sung in a smoky jazz club in the 1920s with Kanellis in flapper get-up. Compared to the first single ‘Fantasy’, my only other experience of Maria’s music at this point, Kanellis’ vocals are softer and have a touch of the Marilyn Monroe about them. She seems to be chanelling that soft, breathy, sexy vocal style that left men enchanted as she sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to the president. I certainly sense the inspiration but I’m not convinced. On the whole, ‘Alice’ is certainly a whimsical song that I think has an air of zaniness to it much like the book and countless movies.
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