Lindsay Lohan

If anyone else had recorded Speak, critics would regard the album as a credible hybrid of electro-throb, rocker-chick attitude and Top 40 ear candy. But because it's recorded by Lindsay Lohan--she of the Disneyfied acting résumé, habitual tabloid appearances and barely legal status--many will dismiss it as nothing more than a lame cash-in cobbled together in time to capitalize on her Hollywood notoriety. And in some cases, Speak does sound just this half-baked--especially the Liz Phair-style "Symptoms of You," which features painful attempts at lyrical wit ("There's a left kind of right/There's a blind kind of sight/Looking at you"). Still, the disc contains some true keepers. "Rumors" is the type of gay-disco dance-floor seduction that Britney Spears used to create; the '80s-style electropop of "To Know Your Name" sounds like Kylie Minogue shoving aside Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan for microphone supremacy, and "Speak" resembles Garbage marketed to the 'tween demographic. The biggest problem with Speak, though, is how little Lohan herself emerges. Her vocals possess about as much individuality as uniformed Catholic-school attendees, and while the music is edgier than that of her supposed rival, Hilary Duff, it's just as infuriatingly generic.