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BEAT STREET

Paris Hilton: Paris

Virgin Records, CD, Rs. 395

For those who cringe at the very sight of this album, we have to set the record straight. Paris Hilton knows music. Indeed, unlike the rest of us, she's probably even heard it being played more than once. And, for Paris Hilton — who in the time since she caught the fancy of the masses has been on TV, been one of the most widely searched for Internet entities, been selling every product ever made by any brand anywhere in the world and even written a book — that was enough of a credential.

Let's face it, Paris was inevitable. After all, in a world where Hillary Duff and Lindsay Lohan can put out albums, could Hilton be far behind? Never mind that the only time she seems to be "singing" is on tracks like "Jealousy" and "Screwed", completely Paris-proof tracks, where the vapid heiress can do next to nothing to mess things up. The rest of the time, she's content to just speak most of the lyrics, treading that safe space where she doesn't really have to put any actual lungpower into her singing. That comes as quite a relief through most of the album, considering the disastrous attempts she makes at a husky, seductive whisper on the first song and at full-throated singing on the last one.

And yet, one has to admit that this album isn't really the worst thing to hit the stands this year. Credit for that, although Paris proudly claims to have co-wrote most of the songs on this album, has to go the best production team that money can buy. Thus, you have songs like "Fight Over Me", where Paris simply fills the small gaps between verses featuring Fat Joe and Jadakiss.

And on almost every other song on the album, a crack team of technicians, led by producer Scott Storch, push Paris's less-than-good voice to the sidelines, letting a compilation of some of the biggest trends in pop and dance music do the talking instead. "Stars Are Blind", an upbeat piece of pop-reggae isn't half-bad when you tune Paris out. "Heartbeat" does a fairly decent tribute to the kind of '80s pop that Cyndi Lauper made famous.

This isn't a good album by any means. But it is an interesting one in that it shows just what the rest of the mainstream pop industry has been reduced to. After all, if Paris can manage this much of an output through simply a great production team, it says a lot for the others in the industry who have so much more working in their favour.

Rakesh Mehar

Evanescence: The Open Door

Sony-BMG, CD, Rs. 399

After selling over 14 million copies worldwide of their debut album Fallen, Evanescence are back with The Open Door. On first impression it must be said that while the band has changed quite a bit in the intervening years between the albums, the music is still somewhat the same.

A word of warning to begin with: the album takes a little bit of listening to before you actually begin to appreciate it. This is because the number of sounds used has vastly increased and the bass has notably been turned down. But the signature of the music is still the same — the powerful vocals of Amy Lee that are haunting and soulful. And since the debut, the music has been largely untouched because of its uniqueness, it mixes together four very unique genres — metal, goth, opera and pop.

The album begins with "Sweet Sacrifice," which is rather unimpressive and then comes the much-touted "Call Me When You're Sober". The number has been bandied about in the lead up to the release of the album. It is a stand-out number, not very fast, mid-tempo rather. There are two ballads in album "Lithium" and "Good Enough". Both have Lee on the piano and there is a dash of violins in the second. And on some of the numbers the eerie chorus is still there, if you love them.

The departure of songwriter and lead guitarist Ben Moody has ushered in Terry Balsamo from Cold. The resulting music cannot be described as metal, as it is closer to something like Creed. You can call it sonic compromise if you want to.

ANAND SANKAR

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