It's clear that Brooke Allison and her team of six producers are trying really hard to make her voice be heard above the teen pop fray on her eponymous debut album. All too clear, actually. Allison tries so hard to sound different while remaining commercial enough to be successful, her record can be grating at times, particularly when she over-sings on the ballads. She's not helped by a selection of mediocre material, either, which doesn't let her play to her strengths, and the skits that clutter the album also slow the record down. These weaknesses are put into sharp effect because she does get it right on occasion, such as the opening track (and lead single) "The Kiss-Off (Goodbye)," which ingeniously uses a computerized voice as its hook, or "Toodle-Oo" (which, for any Sopranos fan, is hard not to hear without Dr. Melfi's voice ringing in the back of your head). That's not enough to make Brooke Allison's debut a success, but it's enough to suggest that she might be able to do more if she settled down, got some better material, and simply cut a straight-ahead pop album without affectation.