Heidi Montag - Superficial

Whilst the world continues to wait for La Toya Jackson to find a cure for AIDS that rhymes with iTunes, the even more selfless self-promoter Heidi Montag has dived right in with the next best thing and released her debut album Superficial. Heidi's fame fatale is front-runner for album of 2010.

I've never been into hardcore rap until now, but the the rushed momentum of Look How I'm Doing is a ferociously stunning responce to all the haters. With simmering synths and neck-popping bare-boned beats sicker than a bullimic at an all you can eat buffet, Heidi chants with a terrifying confidence more destructive than a Haiti weather report.

The breathless Turn Ya Head is autotuned to perfection. 'I'm the bitch that you don't wanna miss' is more justified than her first nose job. 'I'm just on a mission to take you home with me tonight' seals her fate. Legs to the ceiling. The lightweight disco of Fanatic has Heidi 'choking' on a fat beat whilst pledging a healthy obsession.

The first genuine classic on offer, the downbeat Superficial is an oddly affecting autobiographical tearfest full of defensive projecting and a tight delivery sympathetically rhyming 'bitch' with 'rich'. Her robotic persona is brainwashed by her column inches, sounding damaged and amused at the same time. It's no easy task to make sounding miserable so much fun: 'it ain't that easy but it ain't so hard'.

She sings her lungs and her baps out on More Is More, getting plenty of action on a care-less stomper with volcanic heat and lyrical sass acidic enough to give herself another face peel without even a magazine deal needed to fund it. 'Boy you're making me laugh' is sung with even less expression than her new face - the struggle is life-threatening.

Infused with a fresh obsession for wanting to have a good time, One More Drink has all the agony of remembering a night out like the weird gin-stench when you go to the toilet the morning after. Except Heidi's peeing onto a pregancy test whilst trying to remember what basketball team it was.

The distressed-sounding Twisted is a disco surge putting Shakira to shame, and the singer sounds remarkably similar to Marion Raven's The End of Me. Hardly surprising, Heidi sings with a bad taste in her mouth: 'everyone's tell me what you've been doing, who you've been screwing'.

The chugging Hey Boy is her very own Nothing In This World. It's probably the same software at least. The coquetishly cock-hungry My Parade sells herself familiarly as 'the main attraction'.

The excruciating cuteness of the by-now world famous Blackout has lost none of its stylistic bite from the icky verses and an oh-so-sublime 'whoah' perfumed chorus that will leave skidmarks all over your heart. Her sacred mission is none better realised than on a song Miley Cyrus would saw her front teeth off for. Fall in love with it over and over again.

The slinky seduction of I'll Do It gives in yet again to the tempation of being centre of attention, the hot topic of trashy rumours and endless speculation about being 'a hot mess' with edible panties (not that she wears them).

So the fame-climber script climaxes (for now) on closer Love It Or Leave It, autotuned tighter and tougher chants regarding her invinvibility. The misconception of her dead-eyed delusion doesn't get in the way, it merely feeds the appeal, which is the most superficial thing of all because Heidi Montag is a pop star, like it or not.

Running out of concept isn't a problem for Heidi when the topic has as much juice as simply being Heidi does. And the material is the most consistent on any album of 2010 thus far, which is hard to see being challenged any time soon. The synthetic gloss of Blackout is painfully beautiful, and the rest of the album isn't much worse either using her adorably feeble vocal suction to its maximum potential. Whether or not it's the thrill of the fame whore not falling flat on her new face, few pop stars have the class or capability to project explicit trashiness with such beguiling intensity, forging phoniness into art whilst selling every beat with contagiously grimacing self-regard and occaisional seconds of girl-group airhead beauty.

What a shame the pulsating energy of Body Language is missing, not to mention her definitive flashing version of Fashion.

Skip to: Blackout, Superficial, Look How I'm Doing, More Is More, Parade, I'll Do It

Immoral Manufacture

It has taken me a wee while to properly accept The Fame by Lady Gaga as an actual album, it's like the same engine suddenly using different petrol in parts. A lingering highlight for me is the very sunny Stefani sounding Summer Boy, the swaggering dizziness of Disco Heaven is almost languid nu-wave pop perfection (as is the chugging blissful chorus to Boys Boys Boys which could have featured in Clueless for all it's playfully stuck up campness), I Like It Rough has a middle 8 that rings really true, Poker Face certainly flexes the same muscle as Just Dance but it's more ripped and heavy-duty. Initially I thought a sagging point was Again Again, a familiar-sounding ballad that's a bit of an empty tank, as I believe she will have better (more depressing) melancholy than that in her still to come. Brown Eyes is better; a bit of a waster-ballad, down on your luck and almost enjoying it- a grower now that I am listening to it once again. Too bad Retro, Dance, Freak isn't on the UK edition, 'shut down like software' is a cute lyric. I do prefer Heidi's gatecrashing 'Heidi!' version of Fashion, but Gaga sings it too low that's all - it's a song that actually sounds as if travelling down the conveyor belt of immoral pop song manufacture if there ever was such a thing. The Fame should tag Montag's version on at the end, as for her it's a victory along the lines of asking for a refund without the receit and getting away with it.