Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

Marina V is a Russian immigrant who came to the United States with a vision of becoming a performing artist. While she is to be commended, even encouraged, for her desire and work ethic, SIMPLE MAGIC, her third release, is loaded, maybe overloaded, with estrogenic angst.

The tunes on SIMPLE MAGIC are well-written and well-performed, but guys, this isn't our thing. It’s just a little too overwrought from beginning to end; it’s the type of music that, if you caught your girlfriend listening to it, you'd take it as a sign that she was going to go on another cutting jag. There’s one track that rises above the track, though not by much, and that is “I Could Read Your Mind,” which isn't bad, could actually be a single that you might listen to a few times without changing the channel, and if it was featured during “Grey’s Anatomy” while Grey and Dr. McDreamy were dry-humping on the hospital elevator you'd have a visual to lock up with it. But otherwise, honest to God, if you are a female and over 25 and own anything by Tori Amos or Paula Cole you have all ready got too much of this type of thing on your CD changer.