Faith Hill was one the biggest female country stars of the 90s and 2000's. Her powerful vocals and ear for catchy music led her into the pop music world as well as the country music world, but she always had country influence in all of her songs. "Breathe" is an example of one of those crossover songs. It was the No. 1 song of 2000 even though it only reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It reached No.1 on the Adult charts and the Country charts for both the US and Canada and charted worldwide.
The beginning of the song starts out with acoustic guitar plucking. This intro is my favorite part of the song because it really shows the country in the pop and describes the message of the songs through instrumentals. There is something so pure about just acoustic guitar, and that sets this song up, so the chorus can be as big as possible. Hill sings quietly and at the chorus, belts strongly and then goes into head voice towards the end to add more sweetness to the song. The harmony during the second verse adds even more sweetness to the song, and just builds up the second chorus to be even bigger than the first one. I think the only the only real problem with this song are Hill's vocals at the very end of the chorus. She belts at the top of her voice, "just breathe." The loudness and power of this is normally a positive thing and would typically add a lot to a song, but in this situation, it doesn't work. Feeling someone you love breathing should not be an extremely loud moment. It's a soft, precious moment. This song would have been better without that note at the end of the chorus, and would have made her vocals sound more like she was feeling the emotion, not trying to get every high note perfectly.
Faith Hill is a beautiful vocalist. I understand why this song was such a big hit. It has that crossover appeal and is a typical love story that listeners seem to like. There are just a few moments in this song where it seems like this song would have been better to be sung by someone else with less powerful vocals. Besides that, this song deserved to be the No. 1 song of 15 years ago.
Overall Rating: 3 and a half crowns
Faith Hill is a beautiful vocalist. I understand why this song was such a big hit. It has that crossover appeal and is a typical love story that listeners seem to like. There are just a few moments in this song where it seems like this song would have been better to be sung by someone else with less powerful vocals. Besides that, this song deserved to be the No. 1 song of 15 years ago.
Overall Rating: 3 and a half crowns
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