Kym Marsh

After Hear’Say, Marsh released Standing Tall on Island in 2003. Cry, Come On Over and Sentimental supplied the album’s singles, presenting different sides of a voice which could move comfortably between a broad refrain and a more rhythmic pop performance.

Cry gives the singing a large emotional frame. The arrangement grows around the melody, and the vocal has to make that growth feel like part of the song rather than an instruction to become louder. Marsh’s tone supplies some continuity between the quieter entrance and the fuller passages.

Come On Over changes the pace and emphasis. The performance is more outward-looking, allowing the rhythm and the short vocal gestures to do more of the work. Hearing the two singles together is a better introduction than treating either one as a complete definition of her sound.

Standing Tall belongs to a specific moment in early-2000s British pop, when television introductions were giving way to the more demanding task of making an individual recording identity. The album’s polished surface is part of that setting, but the voice is still easy to distinguish.

The musical interest is in the delivery of a phrase: how a line begins, where it gathers weight, and how much feeling can remain in a relatively controlled performance. Cry and Come On Over give those choices two different kinds of room.