Alexa Ray Joel - "Sketches"

Put a pink piano, a frequently updated MySpace.com account and a long, brown wig on Billy Joel and you’ve got his teeny-boppin’, far from “piano girl” singer-songwriter daughter Alexa Ray Joel.

Only six songs at its full length and decorated with drawings done by a five-year-old, Joel’s debut EP titled “Sketches” can credit its musical feng shui to the same classical piano-training her father took and his support of her talents.

The only child of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley’s nine year marriage, Joel seemed to pick up more on her father’s traits in not only her musical talent but looks as well.

Despite her parents’ individual fame, Joel has been putting up a struggle to be heard, the same as all up-and-coming artists. Regardless of the fact that she was “discovered” as a star-to-be when she was born, Joel is keeping her own in the music biz, not as the daughter of two great pop culture icons but in her own skin.

Joel is full of sass, wields a falsetto tone and yet has some definite power from behind that piano.

She opens the EP with bouncing black and white keys which seems a little too familiar as far as her last name goes in the song “The Heart Of Me.” Joel, who has just obtained her first real boyfriend (and is living with him in a chic New York apartment), sings about just that. The idea is sweet and almost naïve but can make you think: “Oh honey, you’ve got a lot to learn.”

However, kid’s got spunk. Probably one of the best parts is when you hear this “uptown girl” drop a rather bubbly f-bomb in “The Revolution Song” where she’s pondering when and what went wrong with how the world is today and how it’s made her the “jaded girl” that she is.

Joel encourages a change which seems to be a trend that’s going on with musicians of our generation as John Mayer and Johnny Lang both mention the same thing in their latest albums.

The last song on the EP, “Resistance,” has a Christina Aguilera resemblance to it – as in, slightly over-the-top vocal trills and heavy minor chords backed by a plunging guitar that gives Christina that almost 80’s butt rock resonance. Joel, however, doesn’t whistle the same tune as her peer but definitely flicks the on-switch with the listener.

The song “Now It’s Gone” has a determined Joel singing that “it’s time I make my story heard” and that’s exactly what “Sketches” is shooting for.

The 20-year-old songstress may lack a bit of experience but she can rock the keys as hard as her father. “Sketches” offers a flavor of authenticity, something that music has been starving for since pop was poisoned by bare-all shock-factor artists like ex-Fed Brit and Mandy Moore’s candy.

Alexa Ray Joel gives hope to pop moguls like Simon Cowell and Lou Pearlman that their music still produces artists who not only can sing, but play their own instruments and look classy doing it.