P4M SINGLE REVIEW: Raven-Symone "With A Child's Heart"

We're not mean, but we wanted SO BAD to hate the new single by Raven-Symone we were sent, "With A Child's Heart." Our policy, you see, is kinda neg on the "uncontrollably cute and adorable," which is how Raven's character Nicole, on "Hanging With Mr. Cooper" was described in the press release that accompanied the single. You remember Raven, right? "America's most adorable granddaughter to television's best loved dad, Cosby" (also from the press release)? An album, Here's To New Dreams released at the age of six?

But we listened to the single, and you know what? "With A Child's Heart" is... cute. Not hard to listen to at all. Like a really expensive soft-drink commercial. No, even better. The musical scientists who cooked up the ditty (Jerome "Rome" Jefferson, Vickie Basemore, Henry Cosby, and Silvia Moore) and the production scientists who are serving it up (Ray Blaize, Paul K Walker, Tom McGee, Rogelia Wilson, Tony "T.W." Williams) have done a fine job of crafting a nice property for their now 13-year-old star, even if they did freight the song unnecessarily with emotional blackmail in the form of a musical quote from a nursery song ("sol-sol-mi-la sol mi") and lyrics like "Nothin's gonna get me down," "A child's heart needs love," and several lines from the prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep..."

Moreover, Raven's voice is promising. A bit of Brandi, a bit of Madonna. But behind those influences-- and behind the potential gothic horror of trading on youth-and-innocence, a la Michael Jackson and Jon Benet Ramsey-- is something deeper, wiser, more honest; something un-sugarcoatable that we're gonna be looking for when Raven's new album, Undeniable, arrives in April.