Listen To This!

‘National treasure’ she may be, but from first listen, “3 Words” immediately lacks the sheen of, well, everything Girls Aloud ever did, frankly.

Opening track, the album’s title track, actually sets the album off to a good start, wavering between indie-electronic and alternative r&b. With a great off-beat piano part and a hard-hitting bass beat that leaps in and out of the tune with a real aggression, there are plenty of inventive elements that make for genuinely keen listening. Sadly though, the track never really “gets” there.

The Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am has his mark stamped all over the album; as expected, it’s all a far cry from anything Cole previously recorded with studio alchemists Xenomania. That said, having now heard Cole on her own, I will certainly find it easier now to identify her voice from within the vastly stronger voices in the Girls Aloud camp. It turns out she was one of the major “ooo-hoo”ers.

Further irritation occurs within Heaven which initially feels like a relatively groovy club anthem, but once Will.I.Am gets going over it, it all feels forced, even incompatible, as though Cole is trying to be as ‘hood’ as she can – see how long you can cope with the Geordie lass trying to authentically sing “my heaven’s wit’ choo”.

Then we come to 2009’s fastest selling single, Fight For This Love. Comparisons to Kelis’ 2006 Lil Star aside (I’ll wait here while you go to check it out…

…back? The same, isn’t it?) Fight… stands strong with undeniably strong production. However, it is a song which underlines current musical trends; it’s not designed to be a classic, but purely to get into the public headspace, make a fuss (and a LOT of money!) and then disappear quickly before anyone realises there actually wasn’t very much to it, once you take away the cut-to-the-thigh trousers, military cap, and fairly spurious drum-break.

Hitting the middle of the album, it’s mostly filler territory I’m afraid, with throwaway hooks, a few audio tricks and more than a handful of cliches; “disguise my tears so you’ll never see/let it rain”, obligatory expletive to show she’s “real” (fo’ sho’).

While Happy Hour would sit happily on a Black Eyed Peas record, straddling that east coast/south London attitude we all love (to hate?), Stand Up is exactly the song you know should have been the first single – if it didn’t sound just like a girls aloud song – and as a result it leaps out from the rest as a pure club anthem without any of the pretense that seems to run through the very veins of the rest of the record. Of course, Will.I.Am still manages to stick his oar in but we’ll forgive him this time as it’s so brief.

The saccharine Don’t Talk About This Love drifts in and out, with its flowing strings and flimsy sentiments; it sounds like a Celine Dion album track – one of the ones where she doesn’t really seem to try very hard but still sounds good. Here Cheryl’s autotune is on so tight she would have sounded better without it, as it only serves to show up the weaknesses in her voice.

Boy Like You is yet more of the new “Westside Cole” persona – again uncomfortable and inauthentic, while final track, previous Will.I.Am release Heartbreaker doesn’t really count as Cole only did a guest spot on it.

If anything this is Cole’s sure fire way of making it big stateside, especially if the rumours of joining Simon Cowell in the US X Factor are true. Girls Aloud, despite massive success in London and around the UK, never really got much attention further afield, but Cole clearly has other plans. If only making an excellent record had been part of it, rather than just a batch of iTunes friendly, forgettable songs that won’t really make it much further than the release of the next Girls Aloud album, let alone setting a new standard in pop. Best leave that to Lady Gaga, perish the thought!