Is it gay that I really like the movie, Mean Girls? I can’t hide behind the excuse that I watched it solely to see its star, Lindsay Lohan because I personally thought Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen blew and the remake of Freaky Friday wasn’t all that great. Mean Girls is, in my opinion, as good a teenage girl movie as I have ever seen. Lohan kind of apexes her career (so far) with that movie and since then she’s been on somewhat of a downward spiral, “Herbie: Fully Loaded” anyone? After making a movie that receives such commercial success as well as positive reviews, there isn’t many more routes to take are there? Apparently, there are.
Lohan began her career as a recording artist in a big way. The first single, off her first album became a runaway success, topping TRL and getting excessive airplay on radio stations. The single, entitled
Rumors combated all the negative press and rumors (get the title?) that were floating around the tabloids about Lindsay. The (un-true?) accusations of breast implants and the like apparently pissed Lohan enough to write/perform a song about them. The song itself isn’t bad, actually it’s damn catchy. Easy to dance to (my heads bobbing now, as I listen to it) and easier to sing along to, Rumors is a superb choice for a first single, but not a great representation of the album. Why is that, on may find themselves asking. It’s not that the rest of the album is bad, but that Rumors is the only song that really doesn’t follow the kind of Pop-Rock/Girly Pop-Punk theme the album uses. I’ll elaborate.
Lohan’s style of music is in no way original, it bares large resemblances to that of Kelly Clarkson, Ashlee Simpson and Hillary Duff, all of whom enjoy rather large amounts of success. The music, as I’m sure everyone reading this knows, isn’t very complex. It usually consists of simple, catchy 3 or 4 chord guitar riffs, bass that follows the guitar like baby ducks follow their mother, 4/4 drum beats (for the musically retarded that is four quarter notes per measure, and is standard in most Popular music) and the occasional subtle use of strings and/or piano depending on the specific song’s style. Lohan’s producers and writers don’t hide the fact that they use this formula for every song on the album except
To Know Your Name, a head bobbing R&B tune about what else but wanting to know a guys name, and (as previously mentioned) the first single. While her producers/writers don’t exactly use revolutionary concepts, they do quite the job. Certain songs on Lohan’s debut are model Pop songs, which I find hard not to like. Songs
Magnet and
Over are awesomely catchy, the latter being the second single (and, like “Rumors” has quite a hot video) and probably my favorite song on the album. It’s an overall fun song, which seeing as my favorite band is Radiohead I don’t hear nearly enough, and one of the more (for lack of a better word) diverse songs on the album. There are some tonal problems though; the biggest example of this being album opener,
Speak . The guitar, the driving force of the song (other than Lohan’s vocals) has some of the worst toned distortion I have ever heard. It’s crunchy, trebly and annoying. This problem isn’t consistent for the entire album, fortunately. I even like the guitar tone in “Over”, especially the wahed clean guitar in the verses.
Ok, so the reader knows that Lindsay Lohan’s music is decent and that Dan Katz is a complete fruit, what’s next? Lohan’s vocals! Well, Lindsay is no Kelly Clarkson but she doesn’t sing all that bad. She has been singing and taking lessons for many years, since. While there isn’t much evidence of great vocals on this (i.e. No huge solos or anything) Lohan’s voice is recognizable and works with the music. Her lyrics, some of which she even writes, are probably the lowlight of the album. Most of them are really clichéd, and rather dull. Obviously, the targeted audience for a Lindsay Lohan album (I would guess 8-12 year old girls) isn’t going to give a great deal about whether the album features complex lyrics as long as it’s fun to sing along to. Hence why most artists in the genre don’t break out of the stereotypical lyrics, but Lindsay Lohan isn’t one of the better “lyricists” in the genre (I would probably go with Kelly Clarkson). For one of the better samples of Lindsay’s lyrics I’ll use the chorus to upbeat love song,
Very Last Moment in Time Quote:
You make we want to…Live like it's the last moon rising
Scream just like no one's there
Lose all of my defenses
Hold you touch you love, you like it's
A very last moment in time
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Based on the last three paragraphs and the fairly popular singles off this you should have already made your decision on whether or not this album is for you or not, but I’m going to include a conclusion paragraph anyways. All in all,
Speak isn’t superb, nor is it terrible it’s pretty far from both actually. Sure Lohan’s vocals aren’t great, neither is the music that backs her up, but for what this album is, it’s not bad at all. It’s catchy and fun like all pop music should be. For that I give Lindsay Lohan’s debut a 2.75/5, just on the brink of becoming a good album, but not quite there.
-Dan
