Flashback: Aly & AJ

I've said time and time again that there are very little artists Disney actually gets right and even less that they actually give some kind of creative freedom to. Aly & AJ however, are one of those extremely lucky few.

I think in order for a debut album to work, it should be convincing and we listeners have to hear something in it that makes us somewhat believe that the artist actually had a hand in even just choosing the songs.

You see the difference is that Aly & AJ actually wrote or co-wrote about eighty-percent of the songs on their debut. They didn't just choose the songs and have other people write songs for them(nothing's wrong with that, it's just that I like artists who at least try to write their own stuff more), they actually took part in making the actual songs and have their names on the album credits not just as singers but as songwriters.

Yes, some of the songs are obviously Disney, some of them just scream 'put me on a DCOM soundtrack', but by listening to the album, you know it's them and you know that if they weren't forced to write some of those songs, they would've still written them.

Technically, Disney won't be able to create another Aly & AJ with the exact same songs and the exact same sound because most of the songs on this album weren't made by them, they were made by the sisters. They're irreplaceable, simply put.

And the number of tracks they produced is astounding. I'm talking about the special edition here with SEVENTEEN tracks(including two new versions from the original album..) which is very uncommon for an album these days. Maybe in the 90's or early 2000's this would've been normal but now the average album length is about twelve to thirteen tracks, sometimes less, sometimes more.

That just goes to show how much these two girls can write on just one album. Their second album was a more 'normal' length so to say, with eleven tracks and a remix of Chemicals React.

Writing that number of songs is amazing and all but what makes me love these girls even more is the fact that I loved every single track on the album. it's another one of those albums that I'll listen to from start to finish and not skip a single track because every track is good, every track has an amazing melody and every track shows their identity. Once you finish listening to the whole thing, it's like you know them really well musically.