Sony
Pop, 2001

It has to happen, doesn’t it? In the carefully calculated and controlled environment of female teen queens, the follow-up album has to feature a “sexual empowerment” theme. Britney Spears starts acting like a sexpot on crack. Mandy Moore fills up her bra to make up for her flat music. And Jessica Simpson, well, she wears a cleverly deceptive “Gee, see-thru shirt but it ain’t really!” outfit on her CD sleeve.

Anyway, back to topic, regardless of how clichéd musically Irresistible is, there’s no denying that Ms Simpson can sing. And wisely she scales down on her banshee shriek most of the time. This album is actually pretty listenable.

The title track has her shredding her virgin princess image with lines like “I know I should say no but…” It’s a smooth, groovy track that is catchy – I can’t get the chorus out of my mind. And there are some decent follow-ups to this track – A Little Bit and Hot Like Fire aren’t too bad, if musically similar and sounding tad like Mariah Carey’s faster stuff.

The ballads aren’t too bad either. Her duet with everybody’s duet partner, Marc Anthony, is too darned catchy. There You Were is pure schmaltz, but it’s a love-found-us-oh-my-baby-oh-oh-oh piece of schmaltz, so it’s okay. Her ex, Nick Lachey, even wrote two tunes for her, one a mid-tempo one, Forever in Your Eyes, and a ballad that’s actually very good, To Fall in Love Again.

Irresistible is pure generic pop with little identity, but it is very nice to the ears. It’s even irresistible at times.