Title: Beautiful Soul Artist: Jesse McCartney Release Date: 9/28/2004 Label: Avex Trax Japan, Hollywood Album Type(s): lyrics/libretto, Enhanced CD-ROM UPCs: 4988064124084, 720616247025, 5050467753020 Genre: Rock Style: Teen Pop Moods: Fun, Playful, Slick, Smooth, Amiable/Good-Natured, Bright, Carefree, Cheerful, Earnest, Exuberant, Happy, Innocent, Party/Celebratory, Refined/Mannered, Sweet Total Copies: 11 Number of Discs/SwapaCD Credits: 1

1. She's No You
2. Beautiful Soul
3. Get Your Shine On
4. Take Your Sweet Time
5. Without U
6. Why Don't You Kiss Her?
7. That Was Then
8. Come to Me
9. What's Your Name?
10. Because You Live
11. Why Is Love So Hard to Find?
12. The Stupid Things
13. [Untitled Track]

Year Type Label Catalog # 2005 CD Hollywood 5046775302 2004 CD Avex Trax Japan 12408 2004 CD Hollywood 162470

Beautiful Soul [Bonus Tracks] Beautiful Soul [Bonus Track]

Jesse McCartney used to be a part of turn-of-the-century teen pop also-rans Dream Street, a group who made a few waves in 2001, just as the renaissance of 1999/2000 was starting to draw to a close. Like other teenage showbiz kids, McCartney covered his bases after the group's demise, signing with Hollywood Records just before he landed a role on the 2004 WB show Summerland, which just happened to be scheduled to hit the airwaves not long after his debut solo album, Beautiful Soul, hit the stores in September 2004. This kind of cross-platform positioning was commonplace midway through the 2000s -- Britney Spears may have started it, but Hilary Duff perfected it, rising up through Disney TV as the lead of the delightful sitcom Lizzie McGuire before having a number one album in 2003 with her first grand-scale pop album, Metamorphosis. That's the path that McCartney and his producers have chosen, and Beautiful Soul is a cross between Metamorphosis and Justin Timberlake's solo debut, Justified. It's targeted at the preteens who made Hilary a star, so it's light and cheerful, but it has the sleek, sultry grooves that made Justified a blockbuster, which means that McCartney has a chance not only to flaunt a little maturity, he's given a direction where he can grow. While some of the material here is a bit generic (the ballads are a particular weakness), the songs that work are shockingly good. The by-the-books teen pop songs, like the lead single, "She's No You," are engaging, but it's the tracks that draw deeply from Timberlake that really get the album moving -- the Robbie Nevil-written "Get Your Shine On" nearly trumps "Rock Your Body" as a successful update of Michael Jackson's Off the Wall. McCartney is still a teenager, still figuring out how to control his voice and use its sweet thinness as an advantage -- for anybody who watched Bravo's brilliant series Showbiz Moms & Dads, he can't help but recall a Shane Klingensmith with talent -- but these songs suggest that he will be able to figure that out, and it's the songs that make this album a welcome surprise. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Name Credits Adam Watts Producer Anabel Sinn Design, Art Direction Andreas Carlsson Producer Andrew Gold Producer Andy Dodd Producer Dani Markman A&R Dave Snow Creative Design Desmond Child Producer Ginger McCartney Vocal Producer, Executive Producer Greg Wells Producer, Vocal Producer, Mixing Jay Landers Executive Producer Jesse McCartney Main Performer Jon Lind Executive Producer Krish Sharma Mixing Matt Gruber Mixing Matthew Gerrard Producer Melanie Nissen Photography Mick Guzauski Mixing Stephen Marcussen Mastering