There is no way Tisdale makes my albums list

"Now here I stand, and I'm still just that girl, I'm following my heart, in this amazing, crazy world." Ack! And this is the second song in which she follows her heart; the first time she had an excuse; it was someone else who wrote the words. There's no way this album makes my ten-best list. Just no way. Even its having three of the best singles of the year doesn't make up for all the little-girl voicings and the rote soul-searching of the rest (oh, I know, the lyrics are heartfelt, and she means them). I can and have voted albums with awful songs on 'em - I'm made of strong stuff, I've done it, you can look it up - but I need five or six amazing songs, not just one amazing song and two really good ones and most of the rest being more-or-less OK to dull. (So is Tisdale an example of what's right with pop - that this only somewhat-talented girl and these somewhat-more-talented songwriters and producers can create amazingness - or what's wrong with pop, that we can't get her to do better or can't come up with better people to do it?)

( I actually like Tisdale's energy, Naked Brothers sweetness )

( Hives enthusiastic, Little Big Town theologically muddled )

The Stooges vs. The Dolls

Right. I finally capitulated. Blackout is the album of the year. Blackout vs. Insomniatic is like Raw Power vs. New York Dolls once was, and what my decision finally came down to then and now was force (power, wantonness, viscera seizing you by the throat, insinuatingly nervy sexiness) vs. love (passion, vulnerability, warmth, sympathy, desperation, smarts, idealism), and I had to admit that it was the Stooges (force) more than the Dolls (love) that I incessantly craved in my musical synapses. The Dolls had more good songs than the Stooges, fewer dead spots, smarter lyrics, more open available humanness (and humaneness), more tunes, more beauty, just as the Aly & A.J. album has more good songs than the Britney, and fewer bad ones (in fact, no bad ones, though I do get annoyed by "Division").

( It helps that Britney's voice is older than Aly's or A.J.'s )