Ashley Tisdale Drops New Single “You’re Always Here”: Listen

Sam Lansky | December 16, 2013 9:34 am

Here’s the thing: Ashley Tisdale‘s 2009 opus Guilty Pleasure is one of those terrific, mostly-forgotten noughties pop records with a lot of crunchy Swedish production that just took what all of her contemporaries were doing and refined it; it’s aggressively derivative and there’s nothing original about it, but who cares? It’s a tremendously catchy and likable dance-pop set.

She doesn’t quite hit the mark on her new single “You’re Always Here,” a one-off return to music that pays tribute to her late grandfather; Tisdale wrote the track with her fiance Christopher French and it’s, well, a little gloopy. The synths are a little tinny, and her vocals are perfectly serviceable but nothing spectacular, and the lyrics are very sweet and sentimental but kind of generic — it’s basically an off-brand “Brightest Morning Star.”

Still! It’s nice to hear the Tiz making new music again, but wouldn’t it be better if it were a bonkers pop anthem like “Hot Mess” or “Hair”? So maybe let’s put the emphasis on that sort of thing again, Ash, and we’ll all be the better for it.

Listen below.

[via Just Jared Jr.]