Listening to Donna Summer's new studio album, touted as her first in 17 years, it's hard to say a bad word about it. Crayons is a carefully crafted, bombastic dance album replete with hand-clap beats, R&B stylized harmonies and tons of fun. From the opening track Stamp Your Feet (she ain't no hollaback girl, hear?) to the too obviously autobiographical romp The Queen is Back "for every generation, you know your queen is back" Crayons is a joy ride.

The problem, if there is one, is that Crayons is lost between 70's disco and today's hip-hop, sample heavy beats. Songs like Sand on My Feet work without modern production values just as fluidly as the title track embrace it. But where is Donna Summer in all this? It's hard to tell what the diva's signature sound is, half the time the vocals don't even sound like her. You could easily believe that she doesn't even sing on reggae-tinged Crayons.

Songs that best invoke the Donna Summer we remember, I'm a Fire and Mr. Music, will take you as close as you are going to get to Bad Girls and the 70's (but how weird is it to hear Donna Summer jam about her iPod?) But then the ballad Be Myself Again, which bizarrely lyrically invokes The Stones' Sympathy for the Devil, works, just in a different way.

If you just listened to Crayons with your eyes closed, you are going to be most closely reminded of C&C Music Factory, itself manufactured pop perfection. That's not to say that Donna Summer is hired help here, only that you may have to enjoy the album for what it is, not who it is.

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