Irish singer Carly Hennessy gradually assembled credentials in modeling and acting before her entry into the oversaturated teen pop arena turned her into a cautionary example. Born in Dublin to a mother already established as a fashion model in Ireland, she appeared in print advertisements while still a young child. After her family spent a short period in South Africa and returned to Dublin, she shifted focus toward performance. At nine she was selected from hundreds of auditionees for a part in the international touring production of Les Miserables. Modeling work continued, most visibly as the face of a nationwide sausage campaign that raised her profile at home. She also released a holiday album in Ireland and the UK and took a minor part in the film Fools of Fortune. Music remained the central ambition, so she and her father traveled to Los Angeles with a demo in hand. The tape reached the president of MCA, who immediately offered a recording contract and green-lit a debut project. Early sessions satisfied neither the label nor Hennessy, prompting the recruitment of former New Radical Gregg Alexander to steer the record back on course. The finished album, Ultimate High, appeared in late 2001 and earned favorable notices. Even so, despite MCA’s reported outlay of more than two million dollars, the project made no impression on a saturated teen market; none of its singles gained traction, and sales remained in the low hundreds rather than the hundreds of thousands required to recover the investment.
