Kids these days.

Five years ago, LeAnn Rimes sounded like she wanted to grow up to be the next Patsy Cline. Not any more. Now that she has finally grown up, more or less -- Rimes turned 18 last August -- she's apparently decided on a different role model: Britney Spears.

Not that we expect to see LeAnn stripping down to her skivvies on TV award shows anytime soon (at least we hope not). But on her sixth album, I Need You, Rimes makes it clear that at this stage in her career, she's less interested in the rich, authentic sounds of country music than she is with the artificial, shallow world of bubblegum-pop.

The results are as dismal as you'd expect. Perhaps even worse. There's nary a fiddle, a walking bass line or a country cover to be found on I Need You's 10 tracks. Instead, they've been replaced by the sterile drum machines, stabbing synthesizers and cheeseball songcraft of a million bad Top 40 dance-pop singles and adult contemporary ballads.

Even worse, these bad Top 40 dance-pop singles and adult contemporary ballads were penned by pop fluffmistress Diane Warren, who has done for the art of songwriting what Taco Bell did for Mexican cuisine. For our money, just one of Warren's treacly, cliche, over-wrought musical hairballs is enough to ruin most albums.

I Need You has no less than three: the ballads But I Do Love You and Soon and the uptempo Can't Fight the Moonlight, whose familiar-sounding chorus and discotronic production make us think it needs a different title -- Oops! ... I Rewrote a Britney Spears Song. Written in the Stars, a duet with Elton John from his year-old Aida album, doesn't help matters any. Only a couple of tracks -- notably Love Must Be Telling Me Something -- offer a bit of country-rock respite from I Need You's relentless Cheez Whiz onslaught. It's so blandly awful, you wish Rimes was still underage, if only so she could still be sent to her room without her supper.

The only component of I Need You that doesn't disappoint is Rimes' voice. It was remarkable when she first unleashed it on the music world at age 13 -- now, it's grown into a spectacular instrument which she continues to wield with grace and subtlety.

But hearing her waste it on junk like this is like listening to Jerry Lee Lewis play Chopsticks. Sure she sounds good, but what's the point? That she can beat the Britneys and Christinas at their own game? Well, point taken, LeAnn. Now go pick on somebody your own size.

The only saving grace of I Need You is that it's mercifully short -- less than 40 minutes.

Trust us, nobody needs this.

Track Listing 1. I Need You
2. But I Do Love You
3. You Are
4. Soon
5. Can't Fight The Moonlight
6. Love Must Be Telling Me Something
7. Written In The Stars - (with Elton John)
8. One Of These Days
9. I Believe In You
10. Together, Forever, Always