OTTAWA -- Pop star Christina Aguilera may be the product of way too much hype.

Sure, there's hot-looking-mama potential based on that recent skanky Rolling Stone magazine cover and just about every media outlet drooling over her bad-girl image.

Huh? Aguilera, a bad girl? For gawdsakes, she's just a 19-year-old former Mouseketeer with a batch of Walt Disney-approved rhythm and blues hits and a good set of pipes.

Like her ex-Mouseketeer pal Britney Spears, she's popular as far as record sales and teen magazines go, maybe even a good role model for the pre-pubescent pop set.

But compare Grammy Award-winner Aguilera's Psykoblast Tour stop at the Corel Centre last night with Spears' visit this time last summer and gaps begin to emerge.

Spears drew a good 10,000 and delivered a slickly-choreographed stage performance from start to finish. Aguilera's show barely reached the 7,500 mark and the half-dozen dancers delivered what came across as a wholesome nightly speed-step workout.

That didn't faze the screamers, who were up on their feet when Aguilera, caked in makeup and hair done up a la I Dream of Jeannie, kicked off with her self-titled debut album hit, Genie In A Bottle. Following a dramatic synthesizer-heavy beginning, in which said dancers worked in a Mulan-styled routine, the lights suddenly shone on Aguilera. No dramatic entrance. Just a sort of, you know, "Here I am!"

All the flashiness of Aguilera's hour-long set came courtesy of a square video screen at stage right, projecting her image with stop-and-start precision camera work. Oh, and a few costume changes, too -- all-white tailed blouse (mid-riff exposed) and pants first, sequined jeans with halter-top second, then white-polka-dot pants with halter-top last. The rest? Pretty tame what's-in-style-now stuff.

The same cannot be said of her fine voice, which recalled a little Whitney Houston here, a little Mariah Carey there and whole lot of Britney nowhere. Those pipes lent some credo to Somebody's Somebody, the tender I Turn to You and Love For All Seasons, Come on Over (All I Want Is You) and the singalong for What A Girl Wants, which had -- quelle surprise -- practically everyone up on their feet shrieking with delight.

Yet those all-night shrieks should have been saved up for arguably Aguilera's best moment -- a reading of Etta James' At Last, accompanied only by her piano player -- and reserved for her worst moment: A watered-down delivery of Free's All Right Now.

Realistically, Aguilera and that fine voice should enjoy the teen super-popularity ride now. But for her to graduate into the realms of distinctive singers, the pop pap will have to be replaced by more soul. (Come to think of it, if Aguilera would have been here days earlier to see Sting, Al Green, Ricky Dillard and the like during the Ottawa Bluesfest, she could've been humbled by the soul oozing out.)

The Moffatts may have found some soul, judging the direction of new material they've been recording in Hawaii with producer Bob Rock (Metallica, Aerosmith, Tal Bachman). Seems Dave, Clint, Bob and Scott Moffatt are looking to shed the teen-dream popdom of their last album, much like what Hanson has done recently. But pop life dictated what worked best last night -- familiar tuneage. One hardly fusses when teen lungs belted out a barrage of larynx-tearing screams during Girl of My Dreams, Miss You Like Crazy, Until You Loved Me and, perhaps a poignant reminder of the present state of pop music, Misery.

And if the best measuring stick of last night's remaining proceedings turned out to be, funny enough, how often people waved those little green glow sticks (one for light, 10 for heavy), here's how the other openers fared:

soulDecision: Vancouver trio's music reminiscent of mellow Earth, Wind and Fire sans horns, full of warmth without resorting to cheese. Real instrumentation came across a little rough around the edges -- just the way a live act should be. Vocally on, nothing flashy in the choreography department. Glow stick rating: Seven. Scream factor: Six.

mytown: Irish boy band alternated between Boyz II Men one minute and 'N Sync-alikes the next. For a couple of songs, two of the guys donned acoustic guitars just to prove they can play as well as sing. They needn't have bothered. Glow stick rating: Four. Scream factor: Five.

McMaster & James: Already live-performance veterans, this being their second packaged-tour appearance and all, the Winnipeg duo's live instrumentation, self-penned repertoire and decent vocal abilities couldn't overcome the precision pre-recorded keyboard and percussion tracks. Glow stick rating: Two. Scream factor: Four.

JAM! Rating: 2.5 out of 5