CD reviews: Miley Cyrus and "Mamma Mia!"

Miley Cyrus, "Breakout" (Hollywood)

Miley can do many things, but she can't stop aging. Now 15, she's gradually taking leave of her 8- to 10-year-old fans -- those who adore her as the star of the "Hannah Montana" TV show and a staple of Radio Disney -- and moving toward those discovering lip gloss. She's riding two fast trains at once, a musical-dramatic-corporate feat of balance.

On "Breakout," her first stand-alone album under her real name, she eases up on songs with total-affirmation chants about being the captain of her ship. Instead here are sweetened pop-punk odes of contradictory emotions, circular thinking, pots outrageously calling kettles black. The lyrics are half-terrible -- almost too realistic as teenage thoughts -- but the best of them transmit the desired message. Which is that she wants total boy commitment, and she also needs some space.

It's a lackluster album, floated by two or three strong selections. "7 Things," the current single, lists with talky insecurity what she hates about a guy. One is his insecurity. A few tracks later, in "Fly on the Wall," she's bullying some poor boy, with Pussycat Dolls relish, for the sin of wanting to know what she talks about with her friends. Her voice is a generous, full-throated holler, with surprisingly deep range for a girl, but in mean mode it becomes pinched and stingy. Obviously the turnabout is hypocritical. Obviously it's teen-accurate.

With one exception -- "Full Circle," with its excellent hooks and nebulous I-can't-quit-you words -- these tracks are as good as the lyric conceits of their choruses. When the narratives grow too interior, as on "Driveway" or "These Four Walls" or "Simple Song," it's as if the production and songwriting battalion called it a day a little early.

BEN RATLIFF, NEW YORK TIMES

Various artists, "Mamma Mia! The Movie Soundtrack" (Decca)

Backing tracks were recorded by several musicians who played on the original ABBA recordings. The rhythms are punchier and fatter than the Broadway cast recording and, arguably, even more addictive. This version doesn't replace ABBA's "Gold," but it can stand on its own as a pop album.