A star is born? Well, not quite

How are we supposed to treat Kelly Osbourne’s opening Saturday at the Roxy?

Should we resent the 18-year-old, on behalf of all the struggling musicians out there, because the main reason she landed a record contract and a headline gig at the fashionable pop club is that she is the daughter of Ozzy and Sharon?

Or should we go easy on her because we all love the Osbourne family TV show, bulldog and all, and because being a celebrity offspring can be as much of a burden as a blessing. Do we need to name names? On Saturday, the pouty-faced punkette made it easy to cut her some slack because she approached the night with the enthusiasm and innocence of a fan rather than the haughtiness and cool of a self-proclaimed star.

You could see signs at every turn of her own fascination with rock performers -- from the way she planted her feet firmly and thrust her arm in the air during songs, a la Billy Idol, to how she mirrored the wide-eyed party exuberance of the Go-Gos.

The most engaging moment in Kelly’s 40-minute set came during the final number when she invited more than a dozen members of the audience onstage to join her in singing Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach.”

It was a sweet, generous instinct because Kelly probably knows that the only way she could get on such a high-profile stage these days without the family ties would be if some other performer invited her up. The fans were so excited to be onstage Saturday that they hugged Kelly and each other, and Kelly seemed as thrilled as any of them.

That same love for the pop experience runs through the teenager’s debut album, “Shut Up.” There’s nothing about the Epic release that makes the music seem any more lasting than a coat of fingernail polish. But the musical foundations of the songs are sometimes inviting because they rely so heavily on proven punk and pop-punk strains, be it the snarl of the Sex Pistols (as on “Disconnected”) or the more poppy, Go-Gos undercurrent of several songs. The lyrics echo equally generic themes about teen impatience and confusion -- with lots of attention given to boys.

Onstage Saturday, Kelly didn’t show enough character as a singer or command as a performer to make us feel the fury of the songs, leaving it up to her four-piece band to supply the energy and aggression written into the numbers. But her disarming manner kept the whole thing from being an empty exercise.

Whatever Kelly’s future as a singer, this solo career move should provide interesting footage for the TV show. It’ll be fun to know what Ozzy, Sharon and brother Jack have to say about it. To her credit Saturday, Kelly stood on her own. None of the other Osbournes stepped onstage, though a proud mom cheered her on from a rear table.