Lindsay Lohan

With Britney Spears playing housewife and Ashlee Simpson still reeling from Lipsync-gate, the teen pop landscape is ripe for new talent. Enter Lindsay Lohan, whose perfectly timed debut album Speak seems primed to make her the next... Hilary? Britney? Ashlee? Take your pick. In 11 scant tracks, Lohan tries to do it all.

The good news is that nothing else on Speak sounds like the awful opening single "Rumors," with its Britney-soundalike vocals and woe-is-me lyrics about the horrors of superstardom. Though Lohan does make two other ill-advised stabs at dance-pop -- on the title track and the almost charmingly unfunky "To Know Your Name" -- her heart's obviously much more in the teen angst ballads, rockier numbers like "First," and soaring Dawson's Creek-friendly anthems like "Very Last Moment in Time."

The rest of Speak is over-produced, anonymous pop-rock, most of which is the creation of producer/songwriter team John Shanks and Kara DioGuardi, a duo almost single-handedly responsible for all of the worst watered-down, radio-friendly female rock anthems of the past four years (Kelly Osbourne's "Shut Up," Ashlee Simpson's "Pieces of Me," Sheryl Crow's "Steve McQueen"...the list goes on). To be fair, the aforementioned "First" and "Very Last Moment in Time" are Shanks/DioGuardi productions, and they're better TRL fodder than the derivative "Rumors." But an entire album's worth of their patented formula makes for a very generic listening experience, and one that leaves you wondering whether Lohan (who co-wrote only a few tunes and, despite the album cover art, plays no guitar here) really has any musical talent or is just a well-packaged product. - Andy Hermann

Lindsay Lohan played a rock & roller in the 2003 remake of the classic Disney identity-change flick Freaky Friday, so perhaps it wasn't a huge stretch for her to leap from acting to singing for the teen idol, yet her 2004 debut, Speak, still feels like a byproduct of an overdriven, overamplified celebrity culture. After all, with just two hit films under her belt, Lindsay wasn't exactly a huge star -- particularly one with a proven track record, one who could regularly open movies or had a fan base ready to follow her to pop music. Nevertheless, it was impossible to read gossip columns, entertainment press, and blogs without reading about Ms. Lohan, whether it was details of her feud with Hilary Duff, debates over the authenticity of her breasts, praise for her role in Tina Fey's Mean Girls, reports of her breakup from That 70s Show actor Wilmer Valderrama, and tales of her partying. This relentless flow of stories made Lindsay Lohan a star even to people who never saw her films, the way that the constant coverage of Paris Hilton turned the heiress into a star. And like that creation of celeb culture, Lohan decided it was time to turn her into a multimedia, cross-platform star, instead of simply an actress, and so Speak was recorded quickly and rushed into the stores at the end of the year. It should come as no surprise that the record sounds like a record that was created in the moment and for the moment, to be the soundtrack to Lohan's wild year. So, there are songs that allude to her partying ways -- most explicitly on the lead single, "Rumors," where Lindsay bats her eyes for the camera as she pleads to be left alone -- and the music is a blend of old-fashioned, Britney-styled dance-pop and the anthemic, arena rock sound pioneered by fellow tween stars Hilary Duff and Ashlee Simpson. Lohan stands apart from the pack with her party-ready attitude and her husky voice, which may be mannered but is fuller than Britney's, and it's perfectly suited for the glitzy music on Speak. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide