Christina Milian: It's About Time

Reviewed by REBECCA BARRY

(Herald rating *)

Christina Milian started young, first as a TV presenter on the Disney Channel and later on MTV, gaining a degree of pop kudos when she worked with Ja Rule and co-wrote the Jennifer Lopez hit Play.

Now, at 22, it certainly helps the Cuban-American to have exotic sex appeal and the experience to dealwith fame - there aren't many other uses for her second album than a nice, shiny coaster.

Milian just seems to be suffering from an identity crisis that her repetitive single Dip It Low can't disguise.

Her voice gets hot and breathy and trills in all the right places (and turns predictably floury on the gooey ballads) but the songs are so bland and lacking in originality they don't do her justice.

Even if they did, she sounds as though she's been studying the sexy crooner manual written by J. Lo herself, with dashes of Aaliyah and Ashanti thrown in.

It's fitting that one of her TV shows was Wannabes.

Label: Def Jam