Mindy McCready (Capitol Nashville, 2002)

For the first time, Mindy McCready got to pick the songs for this her fourth CD of all-new material. This turned out to be a mistake as with the possible exception of "Tremble," which at least shoots for something, none of the songs she chose do more than get your hopes up and then dash them.

On "Lovin' Your Man," McCready breaks her promise to never record a cheating song - sort of; it's actually more of a sisterly apology to the wronged wife. On "Scream," we hope we'll get to hear some of the result of McCready's 10 years of operatic training, but the song is hobbled by bad rhymes ("Ghost" and "bones"?) and mixed metaphors (I wanna let (the anger) go 'fore it smothers my soul/Uncover my heart again, fill in the hole.)

In fairness to McCready, it's hard to play to your strengths in a strictly-audio format when so many of your strengths are visual. (Although God bless her, she tries with an "Is-she-topless?" cover shot.) When she's strutting around CMT we're too distracted by the blonde hair and the belly-button ring to notice things like how many of the lyrics make no sense ("Baby for the first time I'm so completely lost/Somehow I'm right where I belong" from "Tremble"). It may take more than 10 thousand angels to revive this artist's career.