Nor is the platter completely awful. Some of the superstar guest appearances (particularly the Missy Elliott featurette "Signs" and "The Closer I Get to You," a goopy duet with Luther Vandross) are underwhelming, and "Crazy in Love," the lead single, is a slab of Velveeta -- and not just because designated guy-pal Jay-Z name-checks Nick Van Exel. "Baby Boy," with Sean Paul, and "Hip Hop Star," co-starring Big Boi, are better, and pretty much everything else is at least listenable -- machine-tooled pop-soul designed to hit the G-spot.
Problem is, that damn cover is capable of making guys who can't stand pop-soul, or maybe even music in general, pick up a copy of Dangerously in Love -- and once the marketing mavens figure that out, Katy, bar the door. Risqué Beyoncé photos will grace punk albums, metal albums, classical albums, New Age albums, "Weird" Al Yankovic albums -- and when those sell like crazy, you'll see the same things on cereal boxes, frozen TV dinners, soup cans, and bags of cat litter. A trip to the supermarket could become a confrontation with Destiny. Who could afford all that stuff?
So when you see this disc in a store, for God's sake, don't buy it. Although staring at it is probably OK.