The Redemption

Album Review

No doubt about it: the Hogan family had a rough time after the fall 2006 release of Brooke Hogan's first album Undiscovered. Within one year, her parents' marriage dissolved and her mom ran off with a boyfriend younger than the 21-year-old Brooke, sparking a very ugly public divorce not helped at all by her brother's arrest for reckless driving. It was a heaping dose of TMZ-fueled gossip that feeds the part of her second album, Redemption, that isn't devoted to songs of love, sex, and nightclubs, songs that suggest Brooke Hogan is a pretty simple, sweet girl who only wants love and understanding. In another era, she'd be Sandra Dee singing about holding hands, but in 2009, she's a Britney wannabe singing about "BeDDable" boyfriends and rough sex, laying bare the explicit thoughts BritBrit only hints at. Britney's Blackout is a clear sonic template for Redemption, with Brooke happily embracing whatever role is handed her, only taking control on her vitriolic attack on her mother, delivered completely with an actual argument pasted over the bridge, and the ominous self-empowerment of the title track. Apart from this, Brooke is singing with gusto through layers of Auto-Tune, letting her producers fit her into tracks that provide the throbbing soundtrack to a very late Saturday night.