Album: Kelly Rowland, Here I Am (Universal Island)

Ever since their days in Destiny's Child, poor Rowland has always been the bridesmaid to Beyonce's bride, and so it proves on this, which is a sort of also-ran footnote to the diva tropes handled with so much more panache by Mrs Z.

"I'm Dat Chick" opens the album with Kelly's well-meant assertions of her fly-ness, but even by the third track – ironically titled "Motivation" – interest is already flagging in the amorphous assemblages of vocal and musical cliches that comprise the bulk of the album. David Guetta applies his house lock-step to a couple of tracks, one of which ("Comman-der") finds Rowland in the position of impersonating an autotune monotone. The elegant piano motif to "Feelin' Me Right Now" lends a sophistication absent elsewhere, but the lack of inspiration here is nowhere better conveyed than on "Down for Whatever".

DOWNLOAD THIS: Feelin' Me Right Now