More Brandy than Britney Spears, 16-year-old English girl Billie arrives with a debut album that is funkier, more consistent, and better sung than Spears's ...Baby One More Time. Like that disc, though, this one is highlighted by its opening title track, "Honey to the Bee." A midtempo pop R&B performance that smolders like classic Madonna, it's an instant semiclassic. The rest of the CD's exhortations to "love me for me" and defenses of her crowd's right to laugh a bit too loud on "Because We Want To" are hardly conceptual coups, but they come across with enough conviction to seem fresh. --Rickey Wright
