After her star-making turn in "Dreamgirls," playing a part and singing as one-third of a Motown-era group, it sure would have been great to see Jennifer Hudson take a similar path with her self-titled solo debut, as fellow R&B artists Raphael Saadiq and Amy Winehouse have done lately with excellent results.

Instead, she makes a decent stab at the top of the pop charts, employing production from Ne-Yo, Stargate, T-Pain, Missy Elliot and several others who give her a warm, soul-infused – if a bit predictable – palette to stretch her ample vocal cords.

The first single, “Spotlight,” kicks things off with a ready-made club jam, before making its way to the album’s best song – and probably next single – “Pocketbook,” where Timbaland and Jim Beanz provide beat-box percussion clicks and Ludacris drops by for a nice guest verse as Hudson shows off a solid feel for rapping and warns trifling fellas: “Don’t make me hit you with my pocketbook.”

"Jennifer Hudson" falls into a few of the predictable R&B traps (“You Pulled Me Through,” “Can’t Stop the Rain,” which is probably the sixteen-millionth song in which a lonely soul singer can't seem to halt that pesky precipitation), but several tracks exhibit the same retro flair she worked so well in "Dreamgirls" (“I’m His Only Woman”), and a few abstract-soul moves (Polow da Don’s percussive, piano-tinged beat on “My Heart”) keep things lively.

Her major-label debut might not be an instant classic, but she’s certainly got the voice and the talent to go in whatever direction she chooses.

Listen to samples from "Jennifer Hudson" at Amazon.com.

Sussex Countian