Sparks Flew. Like, a year ago. Whoops?

[Note: I wrote this review, like, 11 months ago and kept forgetting to post it. But I've been in a tween girl music frenzy the past week or so, so I dusted it off, just for you!]

I really like Miranda Cosgrove. It helps, of course, that I've been watching her grow up since she was a tiny little thing on Drake and Josh, but she just seems to be a sweet girl with her head on straight, and I'm very fond of her.

This is why it's so sad that she projects awkwardness and discomfort, like, all the time. She's not a bad actress, and she's incredibly pretty, but she looks like she's dying of self-consciousness every time I see her. I want to tell her to stand up straight, take her hands off her hips, and take several deep breaths. Case in point. (Though if I were wearing that jacket, I'd be shrugging awkwardly too.)

But the good thing is, this is an entirely visual issue, and so while listening to her first full-length album, Sparks Fly, I can just enjoy her lovely voice and my positive feelings towards her, and don't have to worry about how twitchy I get while watching her.

Speaking of her voice, I was pleasantly surprised! After hearing her (very enjoyable) contributions to the iCarly soundtrack, I had mentally categorized her - a little dismissively - in the "somewhat squeaky, thin-voiced soprano" group with Aly and AJ, Emily Osment, and Selena Gomez. As one of the better ones, to be sure, but nothing to write home about. And I still wouldn't say she has a voice for the ages - she's not as striking or powerful as, say, Miley - but her pipes are strong and she has impressive range. In "There Will Be Tears," for example, she takes the verses about an octave deeper than usual, and sounds like an entirely different person. (Still good, though.)

The music is standard pop fare, but I love standard pop fare, so that's not a complaint. There are, inevitably, some bombs: the overproduced dancepop variety ("BAM"); the overly-saccharine inspirational ballad variety ("Hey You"); and the "I think I'm a rock star but I am incorrect" variety ("Daydream"). But for the most part the album is extremely listenable, whether Miranda's singing with breathless excitement about new love ("Kissin' U," "Shakespeare") or sassy disdain about a man who done her wrong ("There Will Be Tears," "Brand New You"). There are some nice ballads, too: "Beautiful Mess" is a surprisingly convincing picture of the messy end of a troubled relationship, and Miranda gets to show off her belt nicely in "What Are You Waiting For?"

My favorite, though, is the bouncy, hiccupy "Disgusting" - I listened to the album straight through, then went back and listened to this one like ten times in a row. My only quibble is the utterly baffling line "It's disgusting how you change me/ From a bandit to a baby." Bandit? Really? Because that just makes me picture this:


...which is actually a pretty delightful image, so BONUS POINTS.

Seriously, though, Sparks Fly is pretty much an all-around great pop album, and definitely one of my favorite offerings from the various TV pop princesses. Well done, Miranda. Might I suggest more music and less shrugging in your future? Pretty please?

No guilt here, just pleasure.

One of the (many) reasons I love Tizz is that she just keeps getting better. She was vaguely endearing when The Suite Life of Zack and Cody started; she wound up being the apparent glue that held the show together, since The Suite Life on Deck is unwatchable without her. She was one of the only tolerable actors in High School Musical; by High School Musical 3, her background eyerolls were more entertaining than anything in the nonsense plot. And while her debut album, Headstrong, was an embarrassment all around, Guilty Pleasure, her sophomore effort, is…really, really fun. Who knew?

This is first and foremost because Tizz sounds surprisingly good. Gone is the squeaky, Hilary Duff-esque Tizz of the past; this is a strong, grown-up voice, one that can actually belt and convey multiple emotions, something only a couple of her peers can do. It’s a continued growth from her surprisingly good (albeit sadly truncated) singing performance in HSM 3. Hey, remember how we all scoffed at her “deviated septum” story back when she had her nose job? It might actually have been true, because she sings much more powerfully and less nasally now. I know, I can’t believe it either!

The songs themselves are, for the most part, decent. Most of them tend to run together – there’s 19 on the album, and a good five could have been cut without a noticeable change to the content. They all tend to follow a basic formula of “purred verse, bridge, shouted chorus, rinse and repeat,” as if whoever wrote them was taught to adhere to song structure as rigidly as Elizabethan sonnets, but they’re definitely listenable. The whole album is also seriously 80s-inspired; the title track in particular sounds like it was once recorded by Paula Abdul in her heydey. Others, like “Crank It Up,” sound more current, where “current” equals “like a lost track from Britney Spears’ Circus.”

There are, however, some standouts. There’s only one really bad song, “How Do You Love Someone,” but its caterwauling melodrama is really bad. And the otherwise unremarkable “Time’s Up” is notable for bizarre lyrics like “We’ve squeezed the fruit ‘til there’s no more juice left” and “This cake’s already baked.” Uh. What?

On the other hand, there are some really bright, fun songs: “It’s Alright, It’s OK” is a great kiss-off song, “Hot Mess” is endearingly, well, messy, and “Switch” is bouncy good times. On the rather lovely ballad “Me Without You,” Tizz delivers a vocal performance I wouldn’t have guessed she was capable off, moving effortlessly from whispered vulnerability to a belt that reaches to the cheap seats. And “Hair” is hands-down the best song on the album; the lyrics are clever (well, if you ignore the part where she says “unperfect”), Tizz’s singing is strong, and the whole thing has a lilting, unusual cadence that I just can’t get enough of.

This is not the next Abbey Road, or even the next, say, Oops! I Did It Again. But it is a good, strong, fun album, and gosh darn it, I’m proud of Tizz. Keep it up, sister! You keep defying my expectations, and that’s just fine by me.

Baby, remember my name

The latest remake of Fame leaves me with many questions. Is it based on the movie, the stage show, the TV show, or is it just a bunch of kids at a performing arts school with a couple of the more recognizable songs crammed in there? Is it still set at the New York High School of Performing Arts, and if so, does it take place in the 80s, since the NYHSoPA was folded into LaGuardia High School a quarter century ago, and I don't see any painters in the trailer? And perhaps most importantly, what on earth is the point of remaking a movie that's less than 30 years old? I mean, the clothing may be violently late 70s, but the film's central thesis isn't exactly dated beyond recognition.

It's not that I'm in love with the original Fame. I've actually always found it rather boring. But I'm so very baffled by this new one! And vaguely concerned by the veneer of glitz they seem to be laying over it, when the original Fame was more about laying bare the hardwork and agonies of performing - not about the stage, but about the memorization, the vocal scales, the exercises at the barre, the blood, sweat, and tears that go into that fleeting chance to, as the song says, live forever. It's not sparkly.

I am pleased by the cast. Bebe Neuwirth and Debbie Allen are rightfully living legends, Kesley Grammer is an inspired choice, and Megan Mullally will probably surprise quite a few people with her pipes. As far as the kids go: Asher Book is the perfectly acceptable frontman of the fairly decent boy band V Factory, and from what I can tell from snippets of the soundtrack, he is at least vocally pretty much perfect for the part I suspect he's playing (regardless of the version, Fame always seems to have a skinny neurotic white boy actor, although if that's him with the guitar in the poster he may have just thrown my theory out the window). Kay Panabaker (or Little Panabaker, as we call her) has appeared on various Disney Channel stuff, and although our hearts belong to her older sister (Big (Danielle) Panabaker, star of our beloved Sky High), we're down with all Panabakers as a rule. Anna Maria Perez de Tagle (you probably should've shortened the stage name, hon) plays a bitchy sidekick (poorly) in Hannah Montana and a bitchy sidekick (poorly) in Camp Rock. Let's see if she can actually act off a decent script (assuming this movie has a decent script)! Finally, Bitchy Dance Goddess is played by Kherington of So You Think You Can Dance Season 4, who wasn't our favorite, but at least we know she can dance, which is not always the case in these kinds of movies, Zac Efron.

So cast-wise I am cautiously optimistic. But...listen to those soundtrack snippets again, or at least the second and last ones, the snippets of the title song. "Fame" is not a laidback, groovy dance tune. It is not cool. It is not patient. It is an explosion of ambition and joy and excitement, of dancing on taxis and demanding attention. It is this:



I don't care what you do to the plot, NewFame, but give me that uncontrollable longing bursting out of every student in that school, or you and I will have some very harsh words.

All the Way Osment

Here at Tweenage, we love Emily Osment, the most adorable part of Hannah Montana. I'm not sure it's fair to say that we've been eagerly anticipating her album, because all we've heard from her so far has been an overproduced Tiny Robot Voice, which does not inspire confidence in her singing ability, but we've definitely been interested. Here's the first peek:



Is it just me, or does she sound like she's doing her best Miley impression? She's way overproduced, but I'm pretty sure at this point that her voice is so weak it requires such overproduction. Which is a shame, but the greater shame is that every tween actor feels the need to record an album (or, conversely, every tween singer feels the need to do some acting) when they are not necessarily any good at it.

Also, the song isn't very good.

And yet, I think I love it, just because I love Emily that much. Oh, Tiny Robot Voice, I am your willing slave!

I can't help but smile

Official cover for "So Close," Jennette McCurdy's new single

My deep and true love of Jennette McCurdy is well documented, so you can imagine that I was quite excited when Becky told me she was releasing a single today. Jennette is hands-down the best actor on iCarly, and "iDream of Dance" made it clear that she is also a fantastic, trained dancer. (She's also a figure skater and a versatile writer, not to mention deeply adorable, but let's stick with showbiz for now.) Could she possibly be a triple threat? Could my musical-loving heart take such glory?

The single, "So Close," is out, and the answers to those questions are YES, SHE TOTALLY IS and YES, BUT JUST BARELY.

I'm not linking to a YouTube video because I want you to go to iTunes or the music emporium of your choice and buy it, but if you must sample the goods, it's there. Holy cats, gang. Jennette can belt. No twittery songbird here! She really gets a strong, full sound in there, but unlike some of her cohort who just yell across the song and call it music (I'm looking at you, Demi), she knows when to ease off a bit and give the song some variation and emotion. On top of that, it's a really fun, strummy country jamboree than had me and my roommate bouncing all over the apartment. Always a good sign!

Seriously, someone sign this girl up for Broadway. And a movie musical with Lucas Grabeel (omgtooexcitingtoevendiscuss!). I will say again what I've said at least a dozen times in the past 24 hours: Jennette McCurdy is my hero. I want to be her when I grow down.

Who would've thought that a girl like me would double as a superstar?

I just realized I never got around to reviewing the latest Miley Cyrus album, Breakout. Whoopsies! Since it’s way too late to be anything like a timely review, I’m going to do a retrospective instead and review the first Hannah Montana soundtrack. We shall follow in later posts with Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus and Breakout, and, eventually, the inevitable Hannah Montana 3 and the movie soundtrack (omg how excited are you?)!!!

Now, the thing I like most about Miley is her voice. She has power and range and pitch, which is, sadly, more than you can say for most of the other Disney girls churning out albums. But she also has a very distinctive voice. Most of her peers have variations on a chirpy, squeaky soprano (Vanessa Hudgens, Emily Osment, Selena Gomez, Miranda Cosgrove, Aly and AJ, and Tizz, to name a few). Some do it better than others, but it’s a very definite and omnipresent type.

But Miley doesn’t sound like that. And it's not just that her voice is richer and more mature, although it is both of those things. It’s…smoky with a metallic tang; it’s coppery. I considered likening it to scraping charred barbecue sauce off a hot grill with your teeth, but I thought “coppery” sounded nicer. (I swear, the whole barbecue sauce thing is a compliment.)

The point is, regardless of the stupidity of any particular song (and she has sung some real clunkers in her time, let me tell you), I enjoy the experience of listening to her. And though her voice wasn’t as strong on this first album as it would eventually grow to be, it’s still leaps and bounds ahead of the competitors’.

So let’s get to the music itself. First off, there’s the triumvirate of songs about her double life: “The Best of Both Worlds,” “Just Like You,” and “The Other Side of Me.” These are all, essentially, the same song: “It’s really you but no one ever discovers/ So what you see is only half the story, there’s another side of me/ I’m just like anybody else, can’t you tell?” I mean, they’re all pretty good songs, so I’ve got no beef with the repetition of the theme. The only thing worth noting is that I can’t hear “The Best of Both Worlds” without picturing the opening credits to the show. It’s barely a song to me anymore. It’s just a Pavlovian cue for poorly-acted shenanigans.

I also enjoy the Girl Power diptych, “Who Said” and “I Got Nerve.” I do prefer the former, as “I Got Nerve” kind of doesn’t make any sense (“Electrified/ I’m on a wire/ Getting together and we’re on fire…Don’t close/ Your mind/ The words I use are open.” What?). And I love the slightly bizarre choice in “Who Said” of “Who said I can’t be Superman?” instead of “Supergirl,” not to mention the presidential aspirations and “every girl has a choice.” It’s a fun, bouncy song that makes me want to dance, with a good message to boot. A+!

I’m glad that there is only one Miley-sung song that could really be classified as a love song, considering that a) Miley was tiny when she recorded these, and b) the target audience is eight. That said, “If We Were a Movie” is definitely my favorite song on the album, and one of my favorite Miley songs, period. I love the rollicking rhythm to it, but I also have a lifelong weakness for the “girl in love with best guy friend” trope. Too much Some Kind of Wonderful at a formative age, I guess. (Second favorite: “This Is The Life.” The mellow beat and delivery pleases me.)

“Pumping Up the Party” bores me to tears. And I never listen to the non-Miley songs on this album, except now that I’m reviewing it. Listening to them now, I think I made the right choice to completely ignore them, especially since one of them is by Jesse McCartney, and you know how I feel about him. And finally, “I Learned From You,” the Miley/Billy Ray duet, is deeply cheesy, but as deeply cheesy power ballads go, it’s not bad.

Final verdict? The contents of the album are decent bubblegum pop, but nothing to write home about. The only thing that makes this album extraordinary is Miley’s voice, which wouldn’t be used to its full potential for another year. Stay tuned!

Countdown to HSM3: Top 10 Most Ridiculous Lyrics

10. I Don't Dance

"I'll show you that it's one and the same / Baseball, dancing, same game"

Jess: As anyone who has ever attempted to dance and/or play baseball knows, this is patently untrue. In fact, the only way insane lines like "Lean back, tuck it in, take a chance" make sense is if the whole thing is a metaphor for gay sex. Which we're pretty sure it is.
Becky: Presumably. Because Ryan is encouraging Chad to, "Just hit it." Which literally only makes sense if Ryan is trying to seduce Chad, because Ryan is pitching to Chad, so if we're talking baseball, he shouldn't want Chad to hit anything. If we're talking gay sex, though, pitchers and catchers take on a whole metaphorical meaning that makes way more sense.

9. All For One

"Each day we'll be together / Now until forever"
"Let's celebrate today 'cause there'll never be another"
"It's not about the future / It's not about the past
It's making every single day last and last and last!"

Jess: The HSMers have a very odd relationship with the space/time continuum. Is it about living today...forever? Or the future...that is now? Or, like, totally cute capris? It's the capris, isn't it.
Becky: Well, look at it like this; if there are infinite dimensions with infamous universes, somewhere out there is a HSM where it IS about the future, and one where it IS about the past, and, because they're big into pandimensionality at Disney, they just wanted to reference that. Or... uh.. Yeah.

8. Fabulous

"Turkey imported from Maine"
"I need my Tiffany hair band"

Becky: Presumably Sharpy was too busy planning how to crush Kelsi's last shred of dignity beneath her stiletto-clad heel to pay attention in school, but, um, that's not how imports work. They have to come from another country, honey. Also: really, turkey is her choice poolside snack? I guess maybe I just don't understand the wealthy.
Jess: You're so plebeian, Becky. I, however, am high class, which is how I know that Tiffany's does not sell hair bands...BECAUSE THEY ARE A JEWELRY STORE.

7. Stick to the Status Quo

"No no noooooo / Stick to the stuff you know"
"Open up, dig way down deep…Not another peep"
"Speak your mind and you'll be heard…Not another word"

Becky: East High Student Body, I demand some consistency! Do you want to know people's deep dark secrets, or not?!
Jess: I guess the answer to that is "No no no nooooooo/No no no." Uh, we get the message, guys. Also, you can't rhyme "no" with "know."

6. We're All in This Together

"We're not the same / We're different in a good way"
"We've arrive because we stand together"

Jess: ARRRGH. The saccharine nonsense of this line hurts me like an ice cream headache.
Becky: Especially Sharpay. She's different in a way where she doesn't actually belong in that song, because she hates all of them, and they absolutely never stood together at all.

5. Breaking Free

"And all the world can see us / In a way that's different than who we are / Creating space between us / 'Til we're separate hearts"

Jess: I'm sorry, I thought this movie was about being seen for who you are. Not...a way that's different than that? Or...wait, what?
Becky: And, you know, there OUGHT to be space between them; PDAs at school are just icky. The "separate hearts" line does make me picture Troy and Gabi on a romance novel cover, though.

4. Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

"She was sweet as a peach in a pineapple way / But so sad that she hardly speaky"

Becky: It's a lot harder to snark on this one, because the problem isn't that it's ludicrous or inconsistent, it's that it's, well, kinda racist. The whole thing screams, "Oh, those wacky Pacific Islanders! They have such funny names!"
Jess: Not to mention the kooky dialect. "Oh, those Pacific Islanders! They can't talk good English!"
Becky: Basically, we wish we could have gotten the hilarity of this scene without the patronizing attitude or cultural appropriation. Fail, Disney.

3. Everyday

"Once in a lifetime means there's no second chance"
"No matter where we're going it starts from where we are"

Jess: Okay, I'll admit it. This song is this high (or low) on the list in part because the way it is staged absolutely infuriates me. But it is also there because of idiot lines like these, which either state the obvious (where we're going starts from where we are? NO WAY!) or make no damn sense, and because of the bewildering assertion in the chorus that they are going to "use [their] voices and scream out loud" (at what? AT WHAT?), and because it repeats the endless and incomprehensible theme of living for the moment forever in the future today, or something, and because OH MY GOD "EVERY DAY" IS ONLY ONE WORD WHEN IT'S BEING USED AS AN ADJECTIVE WHICH YOU ARE NOT DOING HERE.

2. Work It Out

"A little bit of sugar / A little bit of butter / It's the perfect recipe"
"Pay day! It'll taste so sweet / Pay day! Good enough to eat"
"Get tickets to the Knicks and Sixers"

Becky: Now, Jess is the one here who isn't terrified of those scary cooking machines in the kitchen, but I'm pretty sure that a little bit of sugar mixed with a little bit of butter gives you ... sugary butter.
Jess: It does! It is the perfect recipe...for a heart attack. Also, I know you're new to the whole working thing, kids, but you can't eat pay day. Also also, Zeke, honey? The Knicks and the Seventy-Sixers a) are basketball teams, which means they play in winter, and b) are on the East Coast.

1. Get'cha Head in the Game

"Make sure that we get the rebound / 'Cause when we get it then the crowd will go wild"

Jess: High School Musical as a whole doesn't really seem to have the concept of "rhyming" down, but this "rebound"/"go wild" couplet is definitely the most egregious example.
Becky: And, hey, if Jess can rant about adjectives, I can at least throw this out there: Apostrophes, UR DOIN IT RONG. Apostrophes replace missing letters and spaces; if you MUST have one in this phrase, it should probably be "get cha'," but even that is stretching it, because it ISN'T an apostrophe-appropriate situation. It's just nonsense, which, if you are truly COMPELLED to punctuate, should get quotation marks to denote that it is being written as it's said, and no apostrophe at all.
Jess: But the real reason this song tops the list is because in defiance of all known laws of the universe, Drew "Voice of Troy" Seeley and his inappropriate apostrophe were nominated for an Emmy.

Music lovers, commence weeping...now.

Like omg you guys! I totally saw Miley!

I walk past Bryant Park every day on my way to work, which means that every Friday I catch a little bit of their summer concert series. So far it's been a fairly small turnout for acts like the Counting Crows, Usher, and Chaka Khan, but today was different.

Today was Miley.

Usually the crowd stretches about halfway across the lawn, with a few scattered people who don't care that much staggered along the walkway outside the lawn. Today the crowd filled the lawn and the walkways and parts of the street bordering the park. You couldn't see anything because of all the signs and balloons being held up, and all the children carried on parents' shoulders – mostly girls, but a fair amount of boys, even teenage ones. All the little girls had on Miley and/or Hannah shirts (except one in a Demi Lovato shirt, which, really, little girl? Did you see Camp Rock? Because it was bad).

The main thing I noticed was that about half the girls were crying. And it wasn't happy crying. Look, five-year-old girls are not emotionally or physically equipped to get up at the crack of dawn, travel from suburbia to midtown Manhattan, and stand in the hot sun for hours, unable to see anything, bored and frustrated and filled with anxious anticipation, all for maybe seven minutes of their hero prancing around stage, barely glimpsed from Mommy's shoulders between signs that say "MILEY MAKES US SMILEY." It's an emotionally overwhelming experience on top of all the physical tsuris. I cried the first time I saw the Backstreet Boys in person, and I was 17. I can't imagine what it would have been like to see my musical idol at age seven. (Although it might not have been that exciting, since Shirley Temple wasn't exactly her iconic self at that point.)

The other thing I noticed was that Miley, when she finally appeared, was wearing a purple plaid shirt, denim short shorts, a white fedora, and black high-heeled ankle boots. Snazzy.

The music? Eh, it was okay.

(Check the performance here, here, and here.)

I don't know which side to buy

Y'all. Y'all. I have had Miley Cyrus's new single stuck in my head for five days now, and I'm still not even sure if I actually like it. Check it out:



I think we're going to have to resort to math on this one.

Plus: Girl can sing, and for once she's not overproduced, so you can really appreciate the richness of her natural voice. Take notes, Baby V: this is what a genuinely powerful singer sounds like. +10

Minus: She gets so shouty on the choruses that her voice is kind of wasted. Confidential to Miley: I know you want desperately to be a hardcore rocker girl, but you're 15, you dance (well, "dance") in concert, and your core fanbase is made up of eight-year-old girls who watch your show on the Disney Channel. You're a pop singer. Embrace the poposity. -6

Plus: On the other hand, there's something endearingly 15-year-old-y about the shouted chorus and tempo change. I totally would have considered that super badass at her age. +3

Minus: The lyrics hurt me in ways too vast to enumerate, starting with the fact that she totally lists more than seven things, and going on from there. -10

Plus: As Becky pointed out, the unsophisticated, vastly illogical lyrics (as well as the shouty chorus) do make it seem like Miley does actually write her own material, unlike the many other pop stars who claim to pen their own music. So good on her for getting her voice out there! I mean, her other voice. Look, you know what I mean. +5

Minus: …No, seriously, "And compared to all the great things that would take too long to write/ I probably should mention the seven that I like…" What? What? -2

Plus: I really enjoy the video. Miley manages to do the whole "I represent all broken-hearted teenage girls" thing without it coming across as arrogant. +7

Minus: Then again, she seems to feel that an oversized argyle vest is the same thing as a dress, which leads me to question Billy Ray's parenting skills. I mean, even more than I already have. (Does he know he has other kids?) -5

Plus: Then again again, she kind of rocks it. Maybe. Sort of. +2

Minus: Okay, I promise this is the last time I'll pick on the lyrics, but she says she's "not coming back"…and then totally tells him how nifty keen he is! Make up your mind, Cyrus! -4

Let's see, add all that up, and…it's a wash. Yeah, that looks about right.

…But it's still totally going on my iPod.

Hudgentified

Well, Vanessa Hudgens has done it again.

By "it," of course, I mean "released an album so bland and overproduced it makes Aly and AJ look like groundbreakers." Her debut offering, V, was a total snoozefest, and Identified is no different. Check out the video for the first single:



What I find completely fascinating about this is what V is doing with her voice. Normally the Hudge has a piping, chirpy little soprano, with a tendency towards a breathy delivery on her non-HSM songs (and of course every note she sings goes straight through her nose, which should have been beaten out of her by her vocal coach years ago, but whatcha gonna do?). But listen to her wail (well, "wail") on this one! She's doing her utmost to sound like a grownup, getting some Christina in there, some Aretha, some big girl voices going on!

And, well, it doesn't actually work. Because Vanessa Hudgens is a tiny pixie made of spun sugar, a dollop of meringue in a sundress, and meringue cannot wail. But by gosh, she's giving it the old college on-set tutoring try!

It is nice to see her being allowed to be non-Caucasian, after the atrocity of her makeup in HSM2, where they apparently attempted to powder away her natural color, despite the shrieking orangeosity of Zef and Tizz. (I originally referred to this as "flouring" her face, but after Camp Rock went whole hog and had its Latina heroine actually stick her face in a bag of flour, I guess I'll have to stop calling it that.) Also, check the sexuality going on here! I guess once you're naked on the internet you can strut your be-sneakered gams down darkened streets with impunity.

Anyhoodle, the entire album vacillates between this attempt at Big Girl Voice and our usual squeaky robot Vanessa. There's very little that's stand-out good or stand-out bad; it pretty much all falls on a spectrum of "mediocre" to "mildly crappy," with a couple of minor exceptions. "Paper Cut" sticks out at me because it makes me a little concerned for the Hudge: "Your love hurts like a paper cut, so sweet/ Never even feel the slice, it's so deep…" But for my money the What the Hell Award goes to "Party on the Moon," which includes not only the word "astrologic," but also the astonishing phrase "Milky Way hotties." Nice one, V.

(I have to say, though, that looking over online lyrics to this album, I feel a bit gypped that I don't live in Japan. Over in the Land of the Rising Sun they get gems like "Set It Off." Not only does it appear to be about Vanessa's high-tech chastity belt, it contains lines like "Now bend over like Houdini/ And there's no key/ You gotta pick the lock." I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I know it's dirty!)

In conclusion, Baby V continues to run a C average - passing, but nothing to write home about. Better luck next time, Sneaks!

OH TIZZ HONEY NO

Meanwhile, Tizz doesn't understand that playing what's become a total joke song straight is a TERRIBLE IDEA. Especially when you can't sing as well as Rick Astley and change the words so that it doesn't rhyme anymore.

Look, I love Tizz more than is sane or healthy, but the girl doesn't make good choices.