You make me want to lala/ In the kitchen on the floor/ I'll be your French maid/ When I meet you at the door/ I'm like an alley cat/ Drink the milk up I want more/ You make me wanna scream.

Like, here!

The thing about pop careers that are ruled with a watchful eye by the parents, is that when said 19-year-old 'I'm not a pop star I'm a real angsty singer, damn you media categorisers! Look, I have brunette hair now and everything!' releases a track like this, my first thought is not about the music. No, my mind clicks immediately to Daddy dearest sitting in the studio saying "This song here, with my beloved baby daughter singing about being a sex-starved, cheap whore? Make it her third single!"

And so to dear Ashlee's new release, which actually takes all her previous singles, (as well as the collected work of Lilix, Katy Rose and Fefe Dobson) and then proceeds to leap around on them in the cool, dark-eyeliner-wearing, suburban-hipster fashion appropriate for attracting the requisite aspirational teen demographics. Which is my excessive way of saying it's really rather good. Post-SNL, I don't know if it's enough to redeem her credibility, but to be honest, I don't really care about that. Were we supposed to believe in the independent talents of Simpson Jr as a single-handed teen-angst rocker, tapping those alienated thoughts into her Livejournal night after night, longing for the day when she too could be a real singer and share her inner pain with the masses? Exactly.

The song is exuberant, irritatingly infectious, and aside from the jarring line where Ashlee swears that 'You can throw me like a boomerang/ I'll come back and beat you up', (which may be emphasizing the strength of her sentiment through the deviation from established rhyme scheme, but probably isn't), the lyrics are punchy enough. Certainly better than her sister prattling on about wearing nothing but T-shirts and still feeling that her surgically enhanced self is still the epitome of feminine beauty.

Obviously since a teenager can't be talking explicitly about sex (unless she's an ingenue Fiona Apple being all seductive in the 'Criminal' video), we have the "lala" refrain presented as a 'zig-a-zig-ah' for the twenty first century: evolution in metaphors before your very pop-loving eyes! The only disappointment, therefore, is the video; which stars not Ms Simpson dressed as a French harlot, writhing around on laminate flooring and some symbolic shots of pussycats, but instead some scenester teens hanging out. Yawn. I did but hope.

Bemoan the lack of maid outfits here

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"I'm sick of rumours spreading/ I'm tired of being followed/ I'm tired of people lying /Saying what they want about me."

inaugural post. I started by thinking I should feature the benchmark for all pop hits; the perfectly formed, irresistibly infectious, pedestal-placed song which the Jennifer Ellison's of the world could only gaze upon in despair.

And then I realized that actually, that would be impossible, since those mythical few have been idolised enough. I never want to read another celebration of 'Can't get you out of my head' by a broadsheet journalist, or an essay about Brian Higgins and Xenomania: yes, they are genius, but we know that already.

So, today it's all about La Lohan. I'm secretly transfixed by this little starlet, as if she spied the gap in the teen market for a good-girl-gone-bad, and knows we're all logging surrepticiously on to pagesix and thatsjustnotright in the hope of another Bungalow 8 Ketel-fuelled fight with Tara Reid about who's the better friend to Paris. The possible/probable augmentation! The public distress post-breakup with minor TV serial-starlet dater Fez! The restraining orders against her father and back-yard brawls!

From the moment I heard she'd developed a bitter feud with Hilary Duff over being two-timed by Aaron Carter, I was hooked. Could Hollywood have produced a more perfect being? And now she follows Ms Duff into the pop arena, with one of the most lacklustre and sorely wanting debuts that's made it to repeat rotation. And yet, that's strangely fitting. See, while Hilary is content to posit life-affirming statements of self belief (Fly! Listen to that little voice in your head! Girls can rock!) in an non-offensive way, Lindsay set her sights on r 'n b styled uber-babe, complete with CCTV snapshot/helipad dance breakdown/gilded cage writhing video. Which is all fabulous.

But this song is abysmal.

There's no hook, no grab. The monotony of Britney's 'Outrageous' but without the production budget. Did the writers not realise that when neither the bridge nor the chorus rhyme, they're breaking vital pop tenants, and not even in a deconstructive way? Metanarrate all you like on needing privacy (as you shake your barely-legal ass for all it's worth) but don't think it will elevate you beyond that sappy blonde piece of afternoon TV fluff; she knows her 'dream/scream/clean' business alright.

Nonetheless, the failures of this track are hugely endearing, and completely fitting for La Lohan. Had she released something sparkling and deft, I would have felt betrayed- the whole point of her existence is as an object of fascination and schadenfreude. 'Rumours' truly crowns her as a mediocre pop starlet, and hence the most interesting kind. I mean, since when did Kylie do anything as interesting as stumble drunk out of a club with MK and Ashley and a nipple slip?

Watch the gyrating here

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