Kelly Osbourne : Shut Up
Epic

Why is it so incredibly difficult to slate the work of Ozzy Osbourne's daughter? Whilst not a huge fan of Ozzy, I have an everlasting respect for the man who made it through the rain more times than anyone can care to remember. Well, to be honest, it's not going to be very hard at all . . .

Kelly Osbourne has released an album based entirely on the cult of personalit,y and who can blame her - or the record company - for cashing in on a little notoriety. It may well sell on curiosity value alone. As a serious musical venture, Shut Up has all the redeeming qualities of cheese. Coolhead bandies itself about as being a valiant attempt at voicing the fact that she's here to stay and wants to be Joan Jett for Generation P (or H, or whatever fucking letter we're on), but it comes over as just plain stroppy. Meanwhile, her pastiche of Papa Don't Preach may be mildly amusing, but it is not a patch on Stiv Bators ruination of Like A Virgin. Why the comparison? Well, look long and hard people.
    Surprisingly, there are odd moments where Kelly comes across as actually having something to offer. Disconnected has a good heart and great big balls - almost enough to fulfil its intention, but it's too long a space between that and More Than Life Itself to blind us to the amount of filler on the disc.
    What doesn't help Kelly out any is the production. While it may be big and bold, it 's not enough to boost it into the stars. If you can cast your mind back 17 years or so and see what producers did then with the likes of Sigue Sigue Sputnik's Flaunt It album, it's a shame nobody had the foresight to really do a number on Shut Up. It really needs it.

Hopefully, if anything good is to come out of this new wave of TV 'pop stars', it's the fact that the only successes will be those writing their own material - David Sneddon, Darius and Sinead Quinn, to name but all of them. Still, it's not a bad 15 minutes, it just needs some time for the dust to settle and for Kelly to realise she's following in the wrong parent's footsteps, for she'd make a formidable manager.
    While Shut Up may not be truly awful, it's bloody close, and that's not a good thing. Avril Lavigne may rest easy, but whether or not a million sk8er boys across the globe choose to buy into it is another thing entirely.

:: Sion Smith