Album Review: Demi by Demi Lovato

The title of Demi Lovato's fourth LP promises a "personal" album, and Lovato gets songwriting credits on nine songs. But make no mistake: This is industrial-strength pop, and all the better for it. The songwriters include hitmaking heavyweights like Ryan Tedder and Rami Yacoub; the choruses boom; the production has a high-gloss sheen. It's predictable stuff – sassy songs, lovelorn songs, a couple of pop-psych pep talks – but Lovato is good company, and her voice has gustiness and character.

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Her return from darkness out of the way, Demi Lovato returns to the serious business of stardom on Demi, her fourth album and the first positioned as the work of a true adult. Maturity is a bit of a tricky business on Demi, as it finds her copping modern trends without quite shaking off the studio system that fostered her. The latter is problematic, resulting in half-baked exercises in pageantry -- such as the "Skyscraper" rewrite "Nightingale" -- and the occasional cultural dissonance, like when she tells a suitor "you try to take me home like you're DiMaggio," a name not heard in a pop song for almost 25 years.

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DEMI LOVATO “Demi” (Hollywood). Aggrievedness suits Demi Lovato well; always has. In her Disney days, she was — relatively speaking — the hellion of the crew, interested in abraded rock, tough-girl postures and smiles that cracked to reveal sneers..

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Demi Lovato’s first two albums were unexpected triumphs from the Disney factory, offering an independent-minded, refreshingly guilt-free take on teen pop. On “Demi,” the “X Factor” judge sounds like she’s trying to make up for lost time by dumbing down and eradicating whatever personality she can. Her voice, once a Kelly Clarkson blowtorch set to low, is now a Katy Perry arc welder, and she pillages Top 40 radio for whatever isn’t nailed down.

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