Leslie Gray Streeter

Going to "Paris?" Get a cheap ticket.

Reviewing Paris, the debut pop collection by reigning trustafarian Paris Hilton, is kind of like writing a food review of a Chicken McNugget. It's sorta tasty, but yet so full of chemical enhancements and artifically binded pieces-parts that you can't tell exactly what's in it.

And you probably don't want to know.

The album, currently available for free on AOL Music and crafted by uber-producers Scott Storch, Jonathan "J.R." Rotem and Dr. Luke, does have its bright spots. The most notable are the reggae-lite single
Stars Are Blind, and the clap-happy Screwed, which makes you wanna cast off your shoes and whatever pride you've collected and dance your face off.

As good as those songs are, "Paris"'s production, as a whole, seems to be - well, all production. The 11 tracks are so heavily piled on with layers of instrumentation, percussion and overlapping vocal tracks that it's hard to discern Hilton's vocals. Gee. You think maybe that's the point?

In short - get it while it's free.

If Paris Hilton were a product - and who are we kidding, she pretty much is - her advertising tag line would be "I'm too sexy for my shirt," which explains a lot about her fashion choices. That's also the theme of "Paris," whose tracks she co-wrote (yes, that's what I said) with song scribes Kara DioGuardi, Billy Steinberg and Sheppard Solomon. I mean, she covers Rod Stewart's Do Ya Think I'm Sexy, which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about where her head is at.

That sort of frank self-awareness apparently sells a lot of Paris Hilton perfume, and musically it's cute in short bursts. But when every song is smacking you in the head with how hot she's supposed to be, it gets real tired, real quick. It might sound breezier if the lyrics were more clever. But ninny-headed lines like "I wanna lose my clothes" on the Britney-esque Turn It Up or the maddening refrain
"I'm so sex-sex-sex-sexy" on the brain-dead "Fightin' Over Me" are like little drops of musical water torture falling on your head. It's pretty embarrassing.

Yes, even for Paris Hilton.

Critiquing Paris' voice is tricky, because it's so breathy and overbearingly pouty that it's hard to tell how much of what your hearing is actual human voice and how much is studio trickery. It's a pleasant breathiness, a mostly in-tune breathiness, and it works OK when the song is strong, like Stars or the Euro-chirpy Nothing In The World. With their amped-up seductive cooing, they're like really good Stacy Q. songs. This may sound like faint praise, but it's what I got.

However, when the song and the production fail her, Paris' singing chops are too weak to hold the thing up. On the inane "Fightin'", featuring rote assistance from Fat Joe and Jadakiss, she sounds bored, like she's reading the lyrics phonetically from an index card. And by the time she takes her breathiness to Do Ya Think I'm Sexy, it's clear that the Empress has no clothes.

OK, you knew that already. But you know what I mean.