Jive
Pop, 2006

Nick Lachey’s second solo effort What’s Left of Me is packed songs cleverly crafted to give this impression that they are defiant and even angry “I will survive my broken heart and divorce” songs that make, perhaps, a more artistic statement than his cavorting around with Vanessa Minnillo. Take I Can’t Hate You Anymore, where he goes, “And how could we quit something we never even tried? Well, you still can’t tell me why” before blasting out, “You walked away, you stole my life, just to find what you’re looking for”. Don’t worry though, he is okay. “But no matter how I try, I can’t hate you anymore,” he sings. He’s willing to wait for her to come to her senses though, as he claims in On Your Own.

It does boggle the mind though, how all these songs managed to be made and released in such a timely manner right after the publicized divorce of Mr Lachey and Jessica Simpson. It’s almost as if the divorce is a handy marketing tool to remind the world that the then newly-divorced people have new CDs out barely months after the ink has been set on paper about the divorce!

What’s Left of Me, the baggage from the divorce aside, is actually a pretty pleasant CD filled with somewhat catchy radio-friendly mid-tempo big ballads. That isn’t a bad thing, actually, but unfortunately the songs are also on the anemic and forgettable side. After a few songs, everything starts to sound the same – this CD becomes a long interminable song by a whiny young man looking for love.

Take out all the divorce hype, what’s left of this CD are a listenable and pleasant but ultimately unmemorable generic radio-friendly pop tunes. It won’t make the ears bleed but I’ll be hard-pressed to remember even one song from this CD once I’ve stopped listening to it.