Sex. That’s the first thing you think of when you see the cover of Shelby Lynne’s new album Love, Shelby. The Daisy Dukes. The midriff. The toused hair. That right-here-right-now look in her eyes. The next thought: Why would one of the most promising singer songwriters in pop music today go Britney to sell records? Especially when the record is as strong as this one. But Lynne is used to confounding her audiences. After recording five country albums on four different Nashville labels, none of which gained her much attention, Lynne refashioned herself in 1998 as a pop singer. So complete was the conversion that Lynne fooled the Recording Academy, grabbing the Best New Artist Grammy last year for her born-again debut record I Am Shelby Lynne.

Lynne’s new record is more unabashed in its pursuit of mainstream success than the genre hopping I Am. No more twang. No boozy blues. This is slick, radio ready rock music—the kind the project’s star producer Glen Ballard is used to making. Ballard, who Alanis Morrissette, Dave Matthews and Michael Jackson have bet on for hits, co-wrote many of the songs on the record. But it’s still Lynne on the microphone, powering through rockers such as the gritty opener “Trust Me” or “Jesus on a Greyhound,” an insipid song that Lynne manages to turn into one of the album’s most likeable tracks. There’s the obligatory softies such as “Wall in Your Heart,” which Lynne renders with graceful restraint; a smart redo of John Lennon’s “Mother;” a failed attempt at jazzy blues (“Tarpoleon Napoleon”) and a few steamers like “I Can’t Wait” that employ the post-coital voice one imagines would come from the seductress on the cover. Added up, these songs form one of the best pop albums released this year and show that Lynne is far from a flash in the pan.