Cheryl Cole's 'Call My Name' may be the SONG OF THE SUMMER if you live in like, Wales or something

Invisible.

Much ink has been spilled about Cheryl Cole's viability as a solo artist, and not without reason.  Since her days in Girls Aloud she's been "the one to watch" and with her epic divorce, brush with malaria-death, and often-wobbly X-Factor judging, she has never exactly shied away from the limelight.  But even in the throes of explosive diarrhea, she has always managed to chuck out VERY GOOD SONGS by what seems like complete accident.

In short, she's not one of those artistes who puts out a song and says JUDGE ME ON MY MUSIC, O PUBLIC but for our immediate purposes that's just what we are going to try to do.  So here are some things about the big Cheryl Cole comeback single:

1.  It is a dance corker with a donk on it
2.  It is a thing by Calvin Harris, because of course it is
3.  It is not as good as "We Found Love" but Cheryl Cole is not as good as Rihanna so that seems appropriate
4.  It has a nice eastern-y feel to it sometimes which makes the track feel "a little bit different" in the way that purple cotton candy seems to taste slightly different than pink cotton candy even though it is exactly the same in every way
5.  It is very good and will likely have some discowhistle shirts-off hands-up rave remixes that we'll barely remember dancing to this summer
6. Somewhat confusingly it is by someone named only Cheryl, and not by Cheryl Cole.  This is ostensibly because Cheryl Cole's people feel that she is enough of an icon that she can go by one name.  (She is not.)
7.  It is out June 10, because apparently it's 1994 and people still release singles to radio A MONTH AND A HALF before they are available to purchase even though time and time again this has proven LITERALLY DISASTROUS to the chart prospects of "big time single launches."

Those were some things about the Cheryl Cole single.  And now here it is.



There it was.

Cheryl Cole splatters her 'Messy Little Raindrops' all over the interwebs - preview the whole album now!

Cheryl Cole has a new album coming out, in case you haven't heard, and we think everyone should come together and just agree right now that it is the MOST BRILLIANTLY NAMED RECORD in recent memory.  It is called 'Messy Little Raindrops' and that's all we really need to say about that.

Here is a preview of the ENTIRE THING.

Hurrah, etc.

Cheryl Cole - Messy Little Raindrops by CherylOnline

Out Nov 1

A rational discussion about Cheryl Cole's 'Promise This' video premiere

F*CKING BRILLIANT




Ok for real though.  It's super nice to see Cheryl ditch the faux-urban mess of the last album and embrace the pure pop cultivated by her stint with Girls Aloud.  If there's one thing history has taught us, it's that pop artists should never, ever go "street" to try to stay relevant (we're looking at you, Ricky Martin's 'I Don't Care') and Cheryl, thankfully, looks to be sidestepping that pit of despair and chart humiliation.

After an epic bout with Malaria that essentially stalled her career in its tracks for a few months, Cheryl needed a smash and it looks like she may have turned one out.  'Promise This' is the rare pop record that is literally QUITE WEIRD but also VERY AMAZING at the same time, and the video mimics that odd but glorious energy.  It's a sort of 90's-dancing-meets-ballet-and-high-fashion-at-an-art-school-student-showcase affair, but against all the odds, it actually works.

With Cheryl set to be a judge the forthcoming American version of 'X Factor' (you know, because she has lots of experience being SUPER SUCCESSFUL in America), things certainly are looking up after the wobbly start of her debut solo album.  Not commercially, of course - it was by all accounts a huge smash - but the whole project was ridiculously divisive amongst critics, 'the blogs' and, most importantly, the fans.  This time around, though, looks like this is one 'Promise' Cheryl can keep.  (Yes.  See what we did there?)



'Promise This' is out Oct. 24, followed by her album 'Messy Little Raindrops' Nov. 1 in the UK.  A US release is set to follow (HRNK!!!)

Cheryl Cole and Will.i.am tell us '3 Words' in new video- watch now!

'3 Words' is by far the best track on Cheryl Cole's new solo album. The song is simple yet catchy, by-the-numbers but groundbreaking. It's one of those songs that begs for a video, but for which a video can never live up to. In short, it's a pop masterpiece. The video, however, will no doubt be divisive, as it's all Gaga-weird and retro strange. It comes off as some sort of hipster art installation but with a budget and a proper makeup artist, a bit like an art school project that the really rich girl in class gets her father to fund. "Daddy, I simply MUST have Will.i.am." Etc.



Still, it's a lot better than most of the snooze-fests kids are releasing these days. 9/10 for the song and 7/10 for the video averages out to a very passable 8. The single's already at 26 in the UK, and is officially released Dec 21.

Chart Chat UK: Oct 25, 2009

The UK Top Five is quite diva-heavy this week, as we see a reality show contestant one-two punch at the top.  Alexandra Burke, the X-Factor winner, slides down to number two with her Flo Rida collaboration 'Bad Boys,' giving up the top slot to Popstars: The Rivals winner/X-Factor judge Cheryl Cole.  Cole's debut single, despite being rather divisive, was always going to make a big splash, and splash it does, with 290,000 copies sold - over 130,000 of those on its first day of release.  Thus it becomes the fastest selling single of 2009, and handily thrusts Cole into the 'Top Stars' bracket.  At 4 we have Robbie Williams, whose comeback has been described by the media as both an epic failure and a spectacular win.  In reality it's probably somewhere in the middle, but it must be encouraging to all involved that 'Bodies' didn't fall off the face of the earth after its debut last week.  The number 5 spot brings us to another artist whose comeback has been a bit questionable.  Whitney Houston, once one of the most bankable singers (and actresses) in the business, has fallen on some difficult times in recent years.  You might have heard about it.  If not, here's the short version:  Whitney married Bobby Brown, did some crack, stopped eating, divorced Bobby Brown, and may or may not have quit doing drugs.  In any case, her first official comeback single, 'Million Dollar Bill' hardly set the charts on fire out of the gate.  But a few weeks on and an AMAZING and shambolic X-Factor performance later, the song vaults up 9 spots to grab Whit's first UK top 5 since 2000.  The rest of the top 10 is pretty uneventful, with some minor shuffles of weeks-old tracks, save for the number 10 entry from Young Soul Rebels.  The not-unpleasant 'I Got Soul' isn't anything to write home about, but it's better than another Black Eyed Peas track isn't it.  The Saturdays continue their swift descent, down 6 to 14, just below Shakira who drops 5 down to 12.  17 and 20 see new entries this week, with Cobra Starship's 'Good Girls Go Bad' and Alphabeat's 'The Spell,' impacting the chart.  This is likely as far as both tracks will go, as each were fully released this week.  For Cobra Starship this is a great result, while Alphabeat has to be a bit disappointed with such a lowly position for their 2nd album's lead-off single.  Christina Aguilera's 'Hurt' enjoys another run at the top 40, re-entering at 25, thanks to its performance on X-Factor, and at 36 we find Lostprophets, whose 'It's Not The End of the World...' faceplants down a full 20 places.

The UK Top Ten:
1 - Cheryl Cole: Fight For This Love
2 - Alexandra Burke: Bad Boys
3 - Chipmunk: Oopsy Daisy
4 - Robbie Williams: Bodies
5 - Whitney Houston: Million Dollar Bill
6 - Taio Cruz: Break Your Heart
7 - Black Eyed Peas: I Gotta Feeling
8 - Jay-Z: Empire State Of Mind
9 - Michael Buble: Haven't Met You Yet
10- Young Soul Rebels: I Got Soul

Listen to the new and very not terrible Cheryl Cole album (clips)

Please note that '3 Words' is PROPERLY INCREDIBLE while 'Rain On Me' sounds like a Pussycat Dolls castoff.  That kind of sums up the whole thing... But luckily half literally amazing and half meh comes out to a final tally of AMAZING.  



Out Oct 26 on Fascination

The Cheryl Cole 'Fight For This Love' video

...is a confusing accompaniment to a quite excellent song. It is confusing because it seems to be the video for a different song entirely but is actually a video for this song. It's all laid back and stylish and fitting with the tone of the track and then there are IN YOUR FACE DANCE MOVES for NO REASON and then it ENDS. Lets break this down:

Things that work:
1 - Cheryl posing against walls
2 - Cheryl posing against shapes
3 - Cheryl posing against green screen effects

Things that do not work:
1 - Everything else



Still, a pretty damn strong first outing for C-Co. The video is growing on us and the song is obviously still AMAZING. Out Oct 19 on Fascination in the UK

The new Cheryl Cole...

On repeated listens it's actually quite good isn't it...

Listen to Cheryl Cole's new solo track and revel in its unoffensiveness

So the 'highly anticipated' first solo single from an Aloud girl (the others did things but we can't remember what they were so we'll just call this the first) had its debut on the radio, and it's not half bad. It's also not half good. In fact it's mostly right in the middle. It starts out sounding like a BIG EPIC POP SONG and then ends up sounding like a Pussycat Dolls filler track. We all know Cheryl can sing, but there's some effect on her voice that makes it sound like she can't, and the breakdown isn't as epic as we would like, but in all fairness it's a little catchy we suppose. Cue ten weeks at number 1 and a trillion dollars in ringtone sales.


Out October 19 on Fascination