Perhaps it was inevitable, once
Britney
shot to stardom strutting in short skirts and, once she got there, she stripped to
"Satisfaction"
and teased
Bob Dole
's dog in Pepsi ads. Perhaps it was inevitable, once
Christina
got what a girl wants, and then danced as a French courtesan for a tie-in to
Moulin Rouge
. Perhaps it was inevitable once
Jessica Simpson
trashed her virginal image with a spread in
FHM
, or when
Mandy Moore
had videos directed by
Gregory Dark
, the auteur behind such extreme-porn as
Sex Freaks
. Perhaps it was inevitable, but nevertheless,
Willa Ford
is shocking, even to jaded observers of pop culture. She's presented as a panting, wanton teen tart, a girl that is desperate to be bad. On the front cover, she looks strikingly like
Nomi Malone
,
Elizabeth Berkley
's legendary loose-cannon white-trash stripper from
Paul Verhoeven
's classic
Showgirls
. On the back, she's dressed in vulgarly short short-shorts; inside, she's posed provocatively on a motorcycle, legs invitingly askew. (Plus, the month the album hit the stores, she was on the cover of the
Maxim
spin-off
Stuff
, with enough makeup to look like a raccoon.) And that's it -- that's how you know
Willa
was here, that's what the album is about. Maybe the lead single,
"I Wanna Be Bad,"
has some post-
Max Martin
flair, and is pretty catchy, but that's the one time the entire cynical enterprise works. After that, things become startlingly crass in its commerciality, as each sub-
dance-pop
cut and syrupy ballad only enhance the sneaking suspicion that this is all about presenting middle-age record collector sex fantasies as modern
pop
(even the CD's label plays into this, looking like a 45 -- something that would make no sense to a teen audience, if that's indeed who this is for). ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine