by William RuhlmannWith her bellybutton ring and in-your-face songs (e.g., "Guys Do It All the Time"), 20-year-old Mindy McCready seemed like the next big thing in Nashville in 1996-1997, especially after her million-selling debut album, Ten Thousand Angels, turned out to feature three Top Ten country singles. But 1997's If I Don't Stay the Night was a relative disappointment, and 1999's I'm Not So Tough an outright disaster, after which she parted ways with her record company, BNA, and switched to Capitol. The new label showed the flag by distributing the promotional single "Scream" in the fall of 2000 but, when it didn't attract much attention, McCready woodshedded before emerging with the radio track "Maybe, Maybe Not" in early 2002, followed by this self-titled fourth album. Despite its mediocre showing, "Scream," with its emotive vocal and elements of traditional country, is the most impressive track here, and McCready might have been better advised to record more material in a similar vein. Instead, she opted for highly produced country-pop recordings -- often reminiscent of Faith Hill -- that don't show her voice off to advantage. Typical of them is "Maybe, Maybe Not," which ought to be a rollicking tune with some of the lyrical bite fans are accustomed to hearing from McCready, except that the overly busy arrangement buries the punch line in the chorus when, after rehearsing the possibility of returning to a former lover, she sings, "Maybe not." Elsewhere, on "I Just Want Love," she throws in a hint of Latin pop, an odd touch for a country album. You can't blame her for trying a variety of approaches in attempting a comeback, but the result is schizophrenic and tends to confirm the view of McCready as a calculating careerist in a field that, despite all, still respects tradition more than anything.