Cheryl - A Million Lights

Friends of mine can vouch for the fact that I've forever been one of Cheryl Cole's most vitriolic critics. Looking back on her career beginnings, though, and the frantic pop majesty that was Girls Aloud, it's a little difficult to swallow, but then the X Factor came along like a giant turd at a picnic and transformed the bloody woman - by far not the strongest vocalist of the band - into a national sweetheart. Skip forward a couple of media and romantic turmoils, and a painfully shit debut album, and you get some level of understanding as to where I am with her.

Dropping the surname now in what's certainly not another PR move to grab newspaper pages, Cheryl returns with album #3 and further pisses on the progress of a Girls Aloud reunion. I'm told it's coming in 2013. That's five years since The Loving Kind. I can't wait five years for separate The Loving Kind moments. It's just not what we penis fans do.


Our Xenomania-free substitute comes then with the opener 'Under the Sun', courtesy of Love the Way You Lie / Airplanes producer Alex da Kid. A slow-paced number with hints of Motown, it's a pretty fine tune that should paint her more favourably. Sadly - and I do feel in the minority here given its ubiquity - single 'Call My Name' undoes all novelty and instead treads the same, piss-poor, heavily trodden Calvin Harris route as recent hits We Found Love and Only the Horses. Sounding also similar to Tulisa's We Are Young it's just outstanding in its unoriginality and you cunts still keep lapping it up. Do I have to sacrifice a limb here for this to stop? I DON'T CARE HOW LITTLE SHE'S WEARING IN THE MUSIC VIDEO. Ahem. Eternal darling of mine will.i.am., in his continuing mentor/friend/media target of supposed romantic interests, pops up with 'Craziest Things'. Repeating its title about 40 times over a monumentally unenthusiastic dub-inspired beat, it does nothing to change my mind on music's worst ever producer.*

Both precursors offered small glimpses of a tune, though, and that dramatically perishes on 'Girl in the Mirror', a kind of Britney Spears derivative "talking about myself over a synth" shitstorm. The totally engaging - and almost Shakespearean in its tragedy - Ashley Cole breakup finds its way into the subject matter of 'A Million Lights' and 'Screw You'. The former's slow, paced and actually quite lovely in its simplicity, but the latter boasts lyrical misnomers such as "we can't love, not like this/ you broke me down, do I even exist?" and, uh, accelerating sound effects. The continual dilution of dubstep in mainstream pop presents 'Love Killer' as perhaps the least edgy pop song since Mandy. The most convincingly ghetto track of all time then manifests itself in 'Ghetto Baby' where Cole coolly implores us to "drop it like it's hot, girl". An odd, unexpected move from her, and almost worthy in its daftness, but the track still fails to engage my ears.

All assaults on the English language continue with the title 'Sexy Den a Mutha', courtesy of Britney/Ashlee Simpson 'vocal producer (!)' Jim Beanz. A small but catchy beat (unnecessary klaxons aside), it's alright. "We can go on and on..." is promised in what's not at all a by-product of sexualisation of music. Another strong, likeable tune is found on Taio Cruz-produced 'Mechanics of the Heart', all gentle and swooping with some rather nice vocals. Final track 'All is Fair', the second of two Beanz placements, somehow builds 3 and a half minutes of material off of the adage "...in love and war". Zzzz.


The sheer fact of the matter is, as much as I hate the woman, don't let that detract from the true disappointment of this album: I was a big fan of her debut record's tracks 3 Words and Stand Up, and let's not forget that Fight For This Love was undeniably catchy. No such earworms exist here without 50 Calvin Harris soundalike predecessors. Ultimate verdict? Give up, bring back Girls Aloud.

Rating: 3.5/10
Highlights: Under the Sun, Mechanics of the Heart, A Million Lights, Sexy Den a Mutha
Avoid: Girl in the Mirror, Love Killer, Call My Name, Craziest Things, All is Fair

Artwork Watch: STOP OBSCURING YOUR FACES WITH ALTERNATING NUMBERS OF FINGERS, POPSTARS.
Up next: R. Kelly   

*Scratch that. I remember you, Pete Waterman.

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