August 29.

That's the date Jessica Simpson fans have been looking forward to for months and months. It's when the beautiful singer/actress/business woman will come out with her latest album, And the Band Played On.
Just don't expect Jessica to dish about her ex-husband, Nick Lachey.

"She's talking about having fun with her girlfriends," Jessica's somewhat crazy, completely controlling dad, Joe, said. "Enough has been said. Let's go on and live our lives."

Instead of turning to the gossip sheets, Simpson actually found inspiration in another diva, Mariah Carey, for the CD.

"It's a lot like Mariah's record, you know. They're both the same kind of singers, they're both ballad singers," said Joe.

Jessica even enlisted the assistance of a Carey cohort: songwriter Johnta Austin, who cowrote Mariah's smash hit, "We Belong Together." Also, Joe encourages fans to look for an up tempo first single, which he describes as "Madonna meets Janet."

So apparently Jessica will sing while hanging from a cross and then lose forty pounds in two months. Sounds like a challenge!