Kylie and J-Lo had better keep a close eye on the competition because Beyoncé Knowles has finally finished her debut solo album and you can bet she’ll be using her bum to sell it. Actually, she already is. In her current video, a bling-bling Beyoncé puts the most powerful thighs in pop to good use by dancing in pants and bending over a lot. And why not? After all, as the songwriter in Destiny’s Child — the sexiest band in R&B — Beyoncé invented the word “bootylicious”.

She also got girls into torn miniskirts during the the summer that Survivor came out and gave Charlie’s Angels a sassy song in Independent Women, Part One. In short, Beyoncé and shorts go together like Jordan and tight T-shirts.

Hence, it’s hard to take the Austin-born Knowles — estimated age 23 or 24, although she seems to have stuck on 21 — seriously when she describes Dangerously in Love (Columbia) as a grown-up album. “I know folks love me as a pop star,” she says. “Now I want them to understand me as an artist.” Er, OK, Beyoncé.

Thankfully, the “artist” in the singer — who co-wrote 15 of the 16 songs on Dangerously in Love (the other is a cover) and co-produced with Matthew Knowles, her father and manager — doesn’t surface straight away. For the first four tracks, the pop star is still in the building and, let’s be honest, that’s just how we like it.

The album starts with the new single, Crazy in Love, a fabulous, funky, R&B number with daring production of the Missy/Timbaland type and a slinky vocal from Beyoncé. It’s not as brash as DC’s singles, but thanks to its whistle-backed, “oh-oh” chorus, big drums and bits of brass, it’s just as catchy. Even the guesting Jay-Z does a decent rap — instead of his usual shouty business — although his spot is the sort that crops up on trashy J-Lo duets, and the lyrics (about falling in love, yawn) aren’t up to much. But Beyoncé and the beats save the day and it’s a definite departure from DC.

The second song, Naughty Girl, is an uptempo party track that steals from Donna Summer’s Love to Love You Baby, has a faintly Arabic feel and an unusually high-pitched Beyoncé singing lines such as “The rhythm’s got me going crazy”. Then there’s Baby Boy, a pared down, Latino-tinged collaboration with Sean Paul, set to clicky beats that sound like castanets. Paul does a reggae rap in the middle, but it’s when he chats while Beyoncé half raps that the pair have real chemistry.

The highlight by a mile, however, is the fourth song Hip Hop Star. Rock guitars, heavy bass and a truly odd rhythm combine behind Beyoncé tripping out lines like Björk — you’d never guess it was her — a bumpy rap by Outkast’s Big Boi and some chirpy couplets from Sleepy Brown.

“I’m a rock star/ Undress me, undress me,” sighs Beyoncé. “Take off your tank top/ And pull off your bra,” retorts Big Boi. For a few minutes, Beyoncé is Britney, Missy and Björk, all at once.

Sadly, it’s the last we’ll see of the shorts-sporting Beyoncé for the next nine songs. And boy, does it feel like a long time. American fans may not mind half an hour of soul slowies, jazzy love songs and Beyoncé tiptoeing round Celine territory, but it won’t go down well over here.

Which isn’t to say it’s all bad. Be With You is a slinky, 1980s-era ballad, and Yes is a nice song set to sparse beats, slow handclaps and a strumming guitar. In places, Beyoncé belts out her lines like Aretha, which is good, or Mariah, which is OK.

But there are several songs to skip. Me, Myself & I, with its string arrangement, is just dull, Signs is awful — apparently Missy Elliott is on there somewhere, but I could only hear her shouting “Ree-wind” halfway through — and Speechless, which starts with a prog guitar solo and has a gentle, jazz-club vibe, almost sent me to sleep. Then Gift from Virgo actually did.

On the plus side, a cover of Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack’s The Closer I Get to You, a duet with Luther Vandross (it also features on his new album, see below), is superb, and the trippy, midtempo Dangerously in Love 2, despite a rotten rap from Jay-Z, is like a flirty Janet Jackson track.

Lest I forget, there’s Beyoncé’s Interlude — some whispered nonsense about harmonies of colours — and a hidden track that’s an ode to “Daddy”. Oh dear. But, thank God, two bonus tracks — Bonnie and Clyde ’03, Beyoncé’s recent Top 10 hit with Jay-Z from his last album, and the underrated, Aretha-like Work It Out, from the Austin Powers movie Goldmember, in which Beyoncé starred — end Dangerously in Love on a high.

So a great start, a good finish and some ballads we can handle. But Beyoncé the pop star wins hands down over Beyoncé the serious artist.

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