POP/ROCK
Greyson Chance, "Waiting Outside the Lines" (eleveneleven/Maverick/Geffen)
Cody Simpson, "4 U" (Atlantic)
After seeing him play Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi" on YouTube at his sixth-grade piano recital in an Oklahoma church, Ellen DeGeneres featured the overly earnest, grandmother-friendly Chance, 13, on her show and signed him to her record label. On his debut EP he reprises "Paparazzi"; just as he did on DeGeneres' show, he treats it like a punching bag, pummeling it over an arrangement so stark that the result has a 3-D effect, with words jumping out of nothingness as if on the attack.
He similarly covers Augustana's "Fire," a mawkish song that there's no frisson in hearing him make even more so. The only original here is the mournful, piano-driven "Waiting Outside the Lines," produced by Da Internz, a blatant Coldplay swipe that tries to match, and rein in, Chance's voice, which is large and prone to roam. It has all the youthful vim of a performer three times his age.
Up against that, the highly mechanized romantic platitudes of Simpson -- an almost-Bieber in every way -- are refreshing in their clear packagedness, their reliance on the tools of technology to bend his voice to a will not fully his own. If Chance is for thoughtful girls who enjoy reading and volunteer work (they need idols, too) then Simpson -- 13, blond, and loving it -- is for the popular girls who demean them.
Discovered on YouTube, like Justin Bieber, Simpson is a similarly pretty vessel with a pretty voice, and he too makes gleaming pop-R&B on his debut EP, "4 U." "Round of Applause" celebrates love that triumphs even over telecommunication struggles, and "iYiYi," a collaboration with the anodyne rapper Flo Rida, is blissful.
But Simpson wants to show range, too, with the Jason Mraz-like "Don't Cry Your Heart Out," and an acoustic-ish version of "iYiYi": Each has flashes of humanity that his other more accessible songs don't. Perhaps in between screams of allegiance-switching Beliebers, Simpson might sneak a look at Chance, small and nimble behind that big piano, and get just a bit jealous.
JON CARAMANICA, NEW YORK TIMES
