Ashley Tisdale - Guilty Pleasure

The whole High School Musical team are "breaking free" and doing their own thing these days. Corbin has his music, Vanessa's looking forward to playing a prostitute, and Zac's seventeen.... Again.

Ashley Tisdale also opted for the pop star route, and second album 'Guilty Pleasure' definitely pushes her forward towards the goal they are all hoping to achieve - to leave their HSM image in the past.

Moving away from the poppier sound of her debut, Ashley has gone all rock chick - complete with a whole new sultry brunette image that looks great on her. The music is much more up to date, and it's obvious that she has taken a lot of inspiration from her own idol, Kelly Clarkson.

Rather fittingly, many of the songs are about shedding an image and being who you are - 'Acting Out', 'Masquerade' and 'Overrated' all fall into this subject. As an opener, 'Acting Out' definitely sets the tone for the rest of the album - it's pop rock at it's best. Both vocally and musically this song is very much like Hilary Duff and more prominently, Stephanie Macintosh - as is most of what follows.

'Masquerade is another good pop-rock track, and 'Tell Me Lies' is a song Clarkson could easily have released herself. Surprisingly, lead single 'It's Alright, It's OK' is one of the let downs on the album. It's as the title suggests - "alright" and "OK". There's nothing to pick fault with, but there's nothing that grabs your attention either. Oh and the chorus sounds suspiciously similar to Pink's hit 'So What'

The ballads on the album consist of 'How Do You Love Someone', 'What If' and 'Me Without You'. Unfortunately the first two are slightly let down by the music - it sounds a little dated, but other than they they're nice songs. 'Me Without You' is the sweetest of the three, and a good track to end the album with.

One number stands out above all others, and that's 'Hair'. 'Hair' is a strange track. For a start, it's poppy sound doesn't fit in with the rest of the album, but more curiously, it gives the impression that Ashley has some sort of a hair fetish! Lyrics such as "but most of all I like what you do to my hair," and "do what you like and get it in knots oooh" just seem a little odd...

All in all 'Guilty Pleasure' is a great pop-rock album. If you're into Kelly Clarkson, and liked Hilary Duff's earlier work then you'll definitely love this. Ashley is really stepping away from the Barbie image of Sharpay - and not just by dyeing her hair.

'Guilty Pleasure' is a huge step up from debut 'Headstrong'.