CD Reviews

CDNow.com

On her debut, Willa Was Here, curvaceous 20-year-old newcomer (and ex-girlfriend of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter) Willa Ford gets her chic on via every dance-pop move in the Pop Star Celebrity Handbook as she high steps toward the lucrative second-tier It girl pantheon currently presided over by Jessica Simpson and Mandy Moore.

Ford doesn't seem to be Here, exactly. Her debut reeks of gloss, all lightweight uptempo tracks ("Jokes on You," "Prince Charming") and schmaltzy ballads ("Tender"), many of which are generated by such impressively avant producers as DJ Skribble and seem to bear little trace of Ford herself.

"I'm about to break all the rules," Ford sings on "I Wanna be Bad," her ironically tame first single, but it's following the rules too closely -- and leaving out anything that seems remotely fun -- that's backed her into such a corner: Anyone fond of dance pop who hasn't already done so would better advised to check out Britney's far superior Oops! … I Did It Again, which serves as both the blueprint and the high water mark for teen diva dance pop.

Brad Cawn CDNOW Contributing Writer

Amazon.com

Wannabe pop queen Willa Ford disses "cheesy (lyrics) about butterflies, sunshine and candy" in the liner notes of her debut album. She might actually score the attempted points against the likes of Mariah Carey and Mandy Moore if her own songs didn't cling desperately to a handful of similarly radio-ready templates. Here horny ("I Wanna Be Bad"), there bitchy ("Joke's on You"), everywhere wistfully lookin'-for-love ("Tender," "Prince Charming"), Ford hardly stakes out her own vocal turf either. She draws on third-hand Britney affectations and the occasional Carey-like dog-whistle squeal, while various production teams cobble together similarly derivative tracks. Ford's romantic fireworks with a Backstreet Boy brought her a small notoriety long before this CD's appearance, and "Tired" makes it clear that she already considers herself a big-enough name that listeners will respond to gripes about fame she hasn't yet achieved. As if. --Rickey Wright

Barnes & Noble

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-Britney, 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-Jessica Simpson 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