Review Summary: Get down.
In a few million years, what remains of humanity will scratch an existence in the desolate, post-apocalyptic wasteland, under the shadow of a colossal female head. They won’t know what significance is attached to the head, but they will worship it, simply for the lack of anything else to deify. This is the inevitable conclusion of Cheryl Cole’s ascension to world-domination. Right now she’s only a few rungs up the ladder, but her legion of bubbling-lipped followers drag new recruits to their cause each day. And good for them, because it’s about time we had a nice looking leader, one with a winning smile and shiny eyes that point in the same direction. Yes, she can’t really sing, but *** does she look nice. In the spirit of generosity, you could call her debut,
3 Words, catchy. In a more realistic sense, it was a bland, formulaic trudge through lowest-common-denominator nonsense, tainted by the hand of that paragon of talent: will.i.am. Well, he’s back again, along with Wayne Wilkins (who wrote/produced ‘Fight For This Love’) and together the merry band have hammered through the bottom of the barrel, taking the rather odd decision to abandon any sense of catchiness in favour of truly pathetic, flimsy dance-pop.
Messy Little Raindrops is consistent in it’s failure, at least. The lyrics are, without exception, witlessly idiotic, to the point that a monkey with crayons stapled to its paws would have produced better. In ‘Everyone’ Cole blithely informs us that
’Sometimes life’s unfair. Don’t let that stop you, though’, and it really speaks volumes about her business acumen that she can do it without laughing hysterically. The saviour of dance-pop, the huge chorus, is MIA, lying dead somewhere between Girls Aloud’s first singles and this abomination. Current mega-hit, ‘Promise This’ barely
has a chorus, instead focussing on a neutered trance backing track, that someone probably slaved over for all of fifteen minutes. There’s the odd half-hearted, half-a
ssed ballad chucked in for good measure, with the relatively stripped ‘Raindrops’ vividly highlighting Cheryl’s lack of vocal strength; and there are woeful attempts for a more urban sound, with will.i.am ripping poop on the mic (‘I don’t wanna chill with no African Americans, I just wanna hang out with figures’). But hey, it’s selling in droves so who cares about pesky things like musical integrity; it’s show
business, remember? Just get on your knees and worship the damn head - or as Cole herself says in ‘Let’s Get Down’:
’Get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down, get down…
