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Over the past five years, Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson has become a hip-hop and pop music idol. Her debut CD, The Dutchess, spawned stunning platinum success and revealed her to be a draw outside of the Black Eyed Peas. Almost as a victory lap for The Dutchess's success, Ferguson brings a few new tracks to a deluxe edition of her debut solo record.

First off, the original tracks of The Dutchess are surprisingly competent pop songs. While Ferguson plays up the mainstream image of a pop whore, her vocal style is pleasant as long as she's not fumbling with rapping verses on tracks like London Bridge, Glamorous, and the ubiquitous Fergalicious. When she is truly front and center on tracks like Clumsy, Pedestal, or even parts of her smash Big Girls Don't Cry, she plays up a nice bit of playful innocence. And ultimately, Ferguson seems as much in control of The Dutchess as producer Will.i.am, making the record listenable and decent pop.

Now on to the four additional tracks, which are the further selling point of the new edition. The first of these is a cover of Heart's Barracuda, done in a way that's surprisingly faithful to the original. While it isn't better than the original, there isn't a feeling of ruining a perfectly good song either. Next is an unneeded track called Party People with Nelly that is a just a messy hip-hop number which further emphasizes how irrelevant Nelly is to the current hip-hop landscape. Nelly tries to sell a hard, curse-filled image four years teaming up with Tim McGraw for a song. The Collipark remiz of Clumsy saps away the big band feel of the original, replacing it with an airless beat that's even sloppy work for the always-simple Collipark guys. Finally, "Labels or Love" is a song that samples parts of Sex and the City's theme and was even on the soundtrack to the film, but as a song it goes nowhere on an otherwise weak synth line and Fergie's poor attempt to a Carrie Bradshaw-esque accent.

So Fergie bats .250 on new material on Dutchess's deluxe edition, which showcases what's both good and bad about Ms. Ferguson's music. What is good about her music is that Fergie plays a great musical tease, however, her rapping efforts hold back the music from being amazingly solid pop and collaborations with Nelly and Soulja Boy certainly don't make those diversions any better. Ultimately, this leads to a pop record that's surprisingly listenable but also sort of disappointing all the same.