I don't want to spend to much time writing about this album because I feel guilty for neglecting all the other singers in the world who are better and don't get any attention because they weren't on Neighbours. But Footprints isn't too bad, so I'll end any 'it's not fair' whining right now. Because it's not fair god damn it, but life's not far, so everyone else can kiss Holly's arse, but they'll have to get in line.

Or online at hollyvalance.net, along with Kojak, I_like_pink69, and traNce who appear to be the most popular posters to the Holly Valance chat forum. All of which will have already bought the album and have hence no need to read a review of it, unless it's to check if we've given it a good rating or not, which we have, but probably not as good as they think it is, and that's the whole point. Because if I_like_pink69 was writing this review she'd be comparing Holly to Pink (who we'd all like to 69 let's face it) (note the face joke), or Kylie Minogue, or Natalie Imbrugliaiaia or Jason Donovan, or Craig McLaughlin or Alf, even though he's on Home and Away, but he'll bring an album out soon enough, flamin' hell.

So it's actually quite Turkish. Which is a surprise. The first song, Kiss Kiss has this really great little Baltic hook to it, which is good. It's originalish. I heard from someone who was backpacking through Turkey not long ago that the song is actually a rip off of a Turkish song which was released at the same time - and it probably is, but who cares. It sounds good, and when you play it in a nightclub everybody wiggles their bum, or stares at the giant video screen trying to get a glimpse of her bum. So it does its job.

What happens after Kiss Kiss is a bit of a shock.

It stays good.

Not good-good, but pop good.

And it gets deeper.

There's acoustic bits and the guitars have nice tone and her voice sounds soulful. It appears she even wrote some of the songs - big fucking woo-hoo you say if you're a purist. But if you're a purist you won't buy this album on principle. So who cares what you think. Not every song is a winner, but they all sound genuine, and if I had a 13 year old sister who was going into a record store to buy something I'd rather she walk out with this than something by Nikki Webster or Christina Aguilera.

Of course, I'd rather she buy something by Kylie Minogue, but she's a bit grown up now. In second grade we had this party for this girl called Julia Star and she was leaving to go to the central coast so we all had to dress up as stars. I wore a yellow shirt, as did most of the class, but there were these two girls who wore makeup and said they were Kylie Minogue, because she was a star. And I thought that was bloody good lateral thinking. So if there's kids in schools around the world having parties for kids whose last name is Star, then let them go as Holly Valance because she's a lot better than Britney.

The truth if it must be know is thatFootprints is a nicely crafted piece of popwork. It's fresh enough to stand up by itself as an album and it's better than Locomotion or I should be so lucky.

If she keeps it up, the future is bright for this new, gulp, star...