Paris pops up

Dominic Utton finds girls just wanna be pop stars
Paris Hilton
ASOS: cut-price versions of clothes worn by celebrities like Paris Hilton

So let's say for a minute you're Paris Hilton. You're the world's most famous socialite - they even coined a word, celebutante, to describe you. You're a successful model, TV star, author; you own your own fashion label, have launched your own perfume, head up a chain of nightclubs, have been named as Playboy's Sex Star Of The Year ... and are heiress to a $360million fortune. So what do you really want to do?

Become a pop star, of course!

Ms Hilton's debut album, Paris, is released on Monday - and it represents the culmination of two full years' work by the celebutante. The critics are naturally thumbing their thesauruses for new and nasty ways to mock her efforts, although the first review on Popjustice settles for the subtly barbed: "this album is almost making us think that someone somewhere has been listening to various successful and brilliant pop records and trying to copy them".

So why put herself through the humiliation? She doesn't need the money, she doesn't need the fame, she can't play, dance or even sing to any great effect. Why would an internationally famous, fabulously wealthy, outrageously successful young woman even want to be a pop star at all?

For the same reason, presumably, Kate Winslet followed her three Oscar nominations with a pop single (2001's What If). Or Nicole Kidman duetted with Robbie Williams the same year. Or Kate Moss released a cover of Some Velvet Morning with Primal Scream. For the same reason Jordan, Caprice and Naomi Campbell have all attempted music careers. For the same reason a young Kylie Minogue went knocking on Pete Waterman's door all those years ago. Because, it seems, all that fame don't mean a thing ... if you ain't gonna sing.

Inside every successful modern millionairess is a wide-eyed X Factor contestant desperate to show what she can do. Being a pop star gives you something no other career can: it's a public display of all the most desirable attributes a young woman like Paris (or Jordan, or Naomi) dreams of. Being a pop star shows you to be at once sexy, creative, empowered and smart. It makes you simultaneously a siren, an artist, a role model and a businesswoman. Or, to put it another way, it makes you Madonna.

Of course, Paris (the album) will get ripped to shreds. But what all of the anticipatory critical nastiness is forgetting is that the first single to be released from it, Stars Are Blind, was actually rather brilliant - like a cross between UB40 and Britney Spears. And the rest of the album, while never repeating the trick, certainly isn't any worse than recent offerings from Jessica Simpson, Rachel Stevens or any number of other so-called "proper" pop stars.

And Paris being Paris, she was at least canny enough to form her own record label to release it on: so no matter what happens, you can bet she'll finish up on the deal. Even Madonna wasn't that smart in the beginning.

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