Selena Gomez Stars Dance ★★★ out of five

PoP • In any form, energy is a very finite resource. Which means it should, when at all possible, be reserved and conserved.

With that knowledge is how you should approach the new album from any dance-pop performer such as Selena Gomez — and there is very little to differentiate her from the disposable many who there are, who’ve come before and who are yet to even be hatched, save, maybe for a much better marketing machine and a higher profile ex/current flame.

The point is, there is also very little on the singer’s new release to expend either positive or negative energy on. It’s innocuous g-rated fare that, itself, wastes nothing by way of artistic or creative exertion, putting all of the effort into giving Gomez the most familiar, catchiest but disposably so electro wardrobe to adorn her plainly pretty and infinitely perky pipes in. It’s eclectic but in a fairly narrow parameter: From the sassy, club opener Birthday, which has her coming off like a designated driver, Minipops version of M.I.A.; to the safe, suburban girl take on dancehall with Like A Champion; the chaste, purity ring approximation of Ke$ha on other songs such as B.E.A.T. and Nobody Does It Like You; and tracks such as Write Your Name, which sound like early Madonna without the energy or interest in pushing envelopes or an agenda. And lyrically, well, that, too is something you probably don’t want or need to invest much time in, or at least as little as Gomez and her writers did, offering little clues about who she is or what she thinks about life or love, save that they’re things that people need or want or should have. Well, as long as it doesn’t take too much time, thought, energy or ... whatever.