At least Jessica Simpson doesn't go over our heads

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By CHUCK CAMPBELL
Sunday, October 22, 2006
"A PUBLIC AFFAIR," Jessica Simpson (Epic)

What a relief Jessica Simpson didn't plunge into the disquieting depths of heartbroken self-analysis, baring her soul as she carefully dissected her split from husband Nick Lachey.

We just couldn't take it, y'all.

Instead, "A Public Affair" teases at being just a good ol' empty-headed dance album ... until Simpson reverts to her normal bland self _ and also engages in a little bizarre experimentation.

The title-track opener floats the possibility that Simpson might be a good fit in a retro-dance niche, its Stock/Aiken/Waterman production style recalling the feisty, 1980s sounds of Bananarama and Rick Astley. That notion is immediately killed when Simpson's sort-of remake of Dead Or Alive's "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" is so sanitized that it subverts the subversion of the original.

Yet she rebounds with a slapping-beat "Boy," a twisting "If You Were Mine" and a Fleetwood Mac-ish "Walkin' Round in a Circle" before "A Public Affair" loses focus and alternates between the mundane and the weird.

Her remarkably unremarkable voice is plugged into the cliche-ridden context of familiar (and wholly superfluous) songs like "The Lover in Me," "Back to You" and "I Don't Want to Care." The stripped-down "Let Him Fly" and the piano-driven "Between You & I" are the only halfway decent examples of Simpson's traditional treacle.

Meanwhile, nothing's truer than Simpson's announcement of "Y'all ain't ready for this" at the onset of the rolling-drum, blaring-horns cut "Swing With Me." Sadly, she also wasn't ready for it.

Then there's her funky hoedown "Push Your Tush" (fill in your own joke here) that actually finds Simpson exclaiming, "Come and get it!", "Take it to the barnyard!" and "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"

Is there such a thing as getting your groove off?

At any rate, if it's a dance album you're looking for, consider backtracking to Madonna's "Confessions on a Dance Floor" from 2005. Because Simpson's party is a bust, y'all.

Rating (five possible): 2

"WE'RE NOT ROBOTS ...," Edgewater (Forevergreen)

Cheerleaders give Edgewater edge.

The Dallas-based band isn't the first to use them _ everyone from Marilyn Manson to Toni Basil has incorporated cheers into their music _ but cheerleader chants really punch up the intensity of "Caught in the Moment," the first single from, and best track on, Edgewater's new "We're Not Robots ..."

The capable band delivers fist-shaking modern rock elsewhere on "Robots," but it needs all the advantages it can muster.

At least the derivative sound is inspired by one particularly superb source: Tool's influence routinely surfaces in Matt Moseman's vocals as well as in the melodies and changing time signatures of the instrumentalists, who are led by dual guitarists Micah Creel and Justin Middleton. Any band that serviceably approximates Tool's sound can't be half bad.

Yet Edgewater is also only half good.

Sure, there's the clean, crackling crunch of "Get It Right" to get "We're Not Robots ..." racing out of the gate. And the dreamlike opening of "S.O.S." erupts into cacophonous despair while the one-letter-different "S.O.B." careens from the get-go with an adrenalin-soaked thrill ride.

But these guys are simply too hyper to leave a good thing alone. The ingratiating guitar/bass cadence of "Rock Is Dead," for example, is ultimately chopped up and screeched over, and the rhythmic verses of closer "Digging for Sounds" are eventually overridden by a clunky chorus.

Other than "I Can't Breathe," which is thoroughly waylaid by muddled thrashing, the ebb and flow of appeal is a constant on all of the tracks of "We're Not Robots ...," whether it's in the fitful meltdown of an "Apples & Oranges" that achieves a scintillating simmer or in the hornets' nest of guitars that taunt and destroy Moseman's plaintive strains on "Engage."

Bitter youth may get what they need from Edgewater, but for most anyone else, "We're Not Robots ..." will sound too mechanical.

More cheerleaders would help.

Rating: 3

"VOYCES UNITED FOR UNHCR," various acts (Intersound)

"Voyces United for UNHCR" has its heart in the right place, and it does offer to educate with its international sampling of performers who aren't familiar to American ears. But the compilation plays it so safe that it's milquetoast.

"Voyces" is a fund-raiser for the United States Association for UNHCR, which supports the UN Refugee Agency.

Obviously this wouldn't be the place for anything remotely offensive, but all of its "edge" comes at the fringes: Polish singer Alicja Janosz opens the collection with the earnest, 1980s-sounding rocker "Still Alive," and U.K.-based White Town closes it with the feisty electronic instrumental "The Pnac Cabal."

The 12 tracks in between are no more spicy than the swaying country-rock "How Long" by former "American Idol" contestant Candice Coleman and a surreal bit of Mideastern hip-hop, "Just Like a Dream," by Cairo-based Natacha Atlas.

Other than an out-of-place bit of Scottish Gaelic music by Mary Jane Lamond, the remainder of "Voyces' " tracks are generic, if sometimes mildly pleasant.

South Africa's Matt Allison imbues his gentle folk/pop "Inside of Me" with a particularly persuasive air, and of the collection's several Lilith-like female artists, Alex Bach serves most memorably with the piano-based ballad "Miles to Go."

As for the rest of "Voyces" ... When listeners are enduring the interminable, sugarcoated "Shin-Koto" by Bulgarian singer Dyana Dafova or wondering which defunct boy bands might have rejected Germany-based Jamie Stevens ("Voice of the Heart"), they need only remind themselves that it's all for a good cause.

Rating: 2-1/2