Warner Australia
Pop, 2000

You can’t make credibility-free, synthetic, absolutely manufactured pop any more frothy and delicious than this. Bardot, a 100% manufactured offspring of the Australian Making the Band-like series Popstars, offers no-nonsense pop in their debut.

Oh, critics can scoff and laments the death of credible pop. But as long as these gals offer the exuberant, energetic pop bubblegum of Down (lovely, lovely, lovely!) and Girls Do, Boys Don’t, I’m going along for the ride. And of course, ballads like the melancholic These Days (great one) and Missin’ Your Life offer the obligatory bid for credibility. I’m not buying it, and I doubt anyone is, but by the final track, the salsa-lite Got Me Where You Want Me, I have too much a great time to care.

Bardot is too fun to make fun of. You go, girls!