But sometimes, as in the case of Sedona, Arizona, teen Michelle Branch, the road to success is traveled by golf cart. And sometimes, golf cart is better.
"I met my future manager when he was vacationing in Sedona," goes the effervescent 18-year-old's story. "He got roped into a time-share tour, and the woman giving him the tour was a family friend of ours."
In a twist of fate that could happen only in Arizona's touristy red-rock oasis, the prospect told the family friend he was from L.A. and he was in the music business.
Like almost everyone in the small artsy town, the saleswoman knew of young Michelle's talents. Her supportive, free-thinking parents -- think Steven and Elise Keaton, if Mallory ever really had any musical talent -- had been coaxing their pretty prodigy to the stage of every fair and art festival they could find. So while the L.A. hotshot was busy poring over the vacation brochure, the friend speed-dialed the Branches' number and told Michelle to get down there, fast.
"I was only 15, and my parents were out at the time," Branch says, "so I jumped in a golf cart and I went down there and met him. He called me about a month later, and that was where it all began."
At the time, Branch was playing acoustic guitar and singing wide-eyed folkie songs. With the backing of her parents, Michelle had even recorded an independent CD that showcased her assured, strong voice on a handful of well-crafted originals and a charmingly waiflike take on Rickie Lee Jones's hopeful ode, "Stewart's Coat."
If that music mogul checking out the trade-up options at Sedona's latest vacation resort had put Branch on the immediate fast track, her major-label debut might have come in the trough of a wave of feisty chicks-with-guitars, landing Branch in the CD bins just as fickle record buyers were beginning to tire of all the Melissas, Sheryls, Jewels and Merediths.
But something funny happened on Michelle Branch's way to becoming the next Lisa Loeb. She became the anti-Britney.
As it happened, Branch's big-label debut four months ago, on Madonna's Maverick Records, arrived at the precise moment the TRL crowd was finally voting to retire all the prefab pop princesses that have been tantalizing us ever since Britney Spears hit it big as the world's naughtiest schoolgirl. Since the release of The Spirit Room, and its appropriately named first single, "Everywhere," young pop fans have been filling Internet message boards with breathless proclamations heralding their new discovery. Suddenly the age-old image of the girl with the guitar is being received as something revolutionary. Again.
Michelle herself insists she isn't on any personal quest to unseat Princess Brit. "Hey, I wish I could dance like that!" she laughs good-naturedly. But she thinks she has a clue why so many young listeners are reacting to her as the answer to their collective prayers.
"The thing is, a lot of my peers, a lot of my friends, we got into record buying when the teen pop thing really came on the scene," she theorizes. "And so a lot of my age group has actually never seen a live band play. A lot of them have seen track acts," she says, referring to the now popular tactic of taking young singing sensations on the concert tour circuit backed with nothing but recorded music tracks. "I give them a real rock show -- and for a lot of kids, that's something new."
With Branch's acoustic-driven songs and unglamorous, girl-next-door image, some may wonder why fans even bother to contrast her with the Britneys and Christinas of the pop world. But Branch has a strong clue on that one, too.
"I think a lot of it has to do with the voice," she says, knowingly.
That voice -- breathy, close-miked and unmistakably youthful -- rings familiar to anyone who's listened to the radio in the past two years. It's the "not a girl, not yet a woman" sound almost every hit-minded record producer has been trying to coax out of young discoveries since Britney and Christina first struck gold with the formula.
Rather than try to go against the sound her voice naturally resembled, Branch -- a fan of all the classic rock records her parents played while she was growing up -- was savvy enough to recognize the young female vocal sound for what it has become: a modern pop instrument in itself, more effective in today's hit factories than an amplified guitar break or an infectious bass line.
"It's funny when you think about it, because that really has become the sound just in the past couple of years," Branch admits of the vocal style evident on The Spirit Room that Entertainment Weekly dissed as occasionally "Mandy Moore-ish."
A student of great pop records who intentionally included some deft "Beatle-y" touches on the 11 radio-ready tracks of her new CD ("I wanted some of my influences to be recognizable," she reveals), Branch embraced the Britney-like touches in her voice, too, layering her own harmonies over the choruses until she achieved a shimmering wall of sound even an army of A-Teens and B*Witched girls would have trouble topping.
"That was my favorite thing to do on the record," Branch says. "I really love to harmonize. Like, my family and friends, they always yell at me 'cause I harmonize with, like, everything on the radio. They're like, 'Shut up, Michelle, we're trying to listen!' "
In many ways, Branch is so much the typical teenager that people have trouble believing the expertly crafted, irresistibly hook-laden songs on her CD can really be the creation of such a young girl. That skepticism is heightened when the listener notes that half of The Spirit Room's songs are co-written by some seasoned L.A. session vets -- most notably producer John Shanks, whose credits include work with Stevie Nicks and Melissa Etheridge, and who co-wrote Branch's breakout hit, "Everywhere."
To prove she really has the songwriting and playing chops, Branch has been going out of her way to demonstrate her abilities to the masses. On an appearance on TRL in September, the young hitmaker even went so far as to sit host Carson Daly down for some on-the-spot guitar lessons, showing the amiable MTV icon the various fingerings available to add the sus-4th sound to a standard G.
She considers her live appearances to be her best weapon against any doubts people may have regarding her natural abilities. "I love playing live," she says. "But most of all, I want to prove to people that I can really do it. I want people to be able to say, 'Oh, wait a minute. This wasn't all studio magic. She can pull this off live.' "
