...Baby One More Time

One might well expect a record by a teenage pop singer to be overly emotional, earnest, bursting with hormonal passions. But 17-year-old Britney Spears' first album feels like the opposite of adolescence: the songs are mostly slick and remote, steering away from anything that's too deeply felt. The title track is cuddly, though, and already a hit single. A few of her songs, including the pleasantly modern ballad E-Mail My Heart, indeed deliver a sugar high, and may well win over the very same crowd that goes for tot-pop acts like the Spice Girls and Brandy. But ultimately not enough of this album excites, involves or surprises. Like youth itself, the pleasures of this debut are fleeting.

--C.J.F.