Remember when you were 15 years old and your then best ally in middle school messaged you on AIM after school one day to ask you to take her `poetry,` and yet though you didn`t really want to, you hit take on the change request for "MyTears.doc" anyway? And so you take it, and it was literally the most dreadful thing you`ve ever show in your life, but rather you told her that it was `very right` and `excited` because you get no other friends and she hangs out with you during gym?
Welcome to Messy Little Raindrops.
To be fair, Cheryl Cole has had enough to be sad about lately: She`s suffered through several humiliating infidelity scandals on the office of footballer and former husband Ashley Cole that led to a very public divorce, a severe malaria scare before this class that almost led to her death, and a rigorous X Factor audition process that contribute to a briefly terrifying moment in pop culture known as Diva Fever.
Sadly, with the discharge of the singer`s upcoming sophomore studio album on November 1, Messy Little Raindrops, it seems the Moment Most Beautiful Woman of the twentieth Century has something else to feeling bad about: Her music.
From "The Swamp" to "Happy Tears," it`s clear that the S.S. Cole has sprung a major leak on its solo journey-and the results are devastatingly soggy.
For one thing, the lyrics truly offer Cole no favors: That awful, obvious rain metaphor-the water, the tears, the flood-has been exploited for decades now in pop music, from "Tears On My Pillow" to "Cry Me A River."
With the album`s title track, "Raindrops" (which is-if aught else-an example in anguish and a screen of survival for fans everywhere), the oft-employed imagery is beaten to a watery pulp.
Above a wandering guitar strum, Cole takes to the mic with literally the worst lyrics put to music this year: "You were the tree, and I was the apple that cruel to the earth and turned brown / Hate was the wind, but love was the underground that blew us to where we are now," the songstress squawks. "And now love can arise without tiny little raindrops / Tiny little, tiny little, messy little raindrops / so cry on my shoulder for love, for love." Excruciating.
But waterworks aren`t the sole reason for embarrassment.
It is no small secret that Cheryl Cole was never the `representative` of Girls Aloud (Oh hay, Nadine!). Yet while the other girl-grouper`s severe vocal limitations were at least cleverly overlooked on 3 Words, the mass of Messy`s contents puts the spot on Chezza`s iffy delivery style.
Many of the songs are rife with awkward silences at the end of every nervously crooned, slightly flat note from Cole, as with the godawful "Happy Tears" and the dub-step influenced "Everyone (feat. Dizzee Rascal)": She simply cannot compete with the song`s harder beats, stretching her slender voice on the verses until Dizzee mercifully steps in and shows her how it`s done. (And I don`t even wish for Mr. Rascal!)
The album`s only redeeming moments are few and far between, coming only when Cole veers from the dodgy dramatics and finally cuts loose. Well, kind of.
"Yeah Yeah (feat. Travie McCoy)" is the album`s best offering (and probable third single), amisleadingly amazing number ended with Confessions On A Dance Floor-esque synthesizers, twinkling electronica and an extended teary-eyed piano riff. It`s definitely the direction Cole should have headed for the length of the record, which makes the impending nose-dive into emotional overload that often more tragic.
"Amnesia" is another praise-worthy cut, in which Cole glides across a cool, Bollywood-tinged twinkling rhythm: "You should be, you could be, why can`t we? / You should be, you should be with me," she sings during the infectious, winding chorus.
"Better to Lie" is just as well, if only because it`s a note-by-note rip-off of Keri Hilson`s "Knock You Down" (and after every other mid-tempo electro-R&B track you`ve heard on American Top 40 radio.)
Yet level at her best, Cole still sounds staunchly unconvinced of herself: "Five years of work, two whole years of party / Waiting for the weekend so I can impress my body" she tiredly warbles above the slapping electronic rhythm of "Let`s Get Down," sounding more like she`s about to go into tears rather than grabbing her stilettos for a night on the township with her "bitches."
It`s not that I wanted to dislike this album. I enjoy everything about Cheryl Cole. I LOVE Cheryl Cole! Fuck, I even cried along with her during the audience with Piers Morgan this weekend. But that doesn`t explain the fact that she`s produced one of the most lackluster records of the class in Messy Little Raindrops, an album that plays more like an exercise in self-mockery of her proclivity for public tear-shedding than a compendium of good pop songs.
In the end, even the best tracks here would be considered merely "passable"by any other major pop artist`s standards, leading to the most infuriating aspect of Messy Little Raindrops: With the budget Cole has been afforded and the fame she`s acquired from being one of the most adored acts in all of Great Britain, it becomes all the more noisome to believe that something as heinous as "Raindrops" could not simply form the cut for Cole`s sophomore album, but go on to set the very effort itself.
Quite simply: To love Messy Little Raindrops is to love Cheryl, not the music. Even the worst tracks on the book will be quickly shrugged aside in respect to her infectious, lovable personality. There`s no way that a book of this character could be released by any other artist and reach the sales and visibility that it will inevitably garner except under the wings of Britain`s most beloved celebrity.
Die-hards and 14-year-olds will come undone for this record, which is almost destined for the #1 point on the album charts. For genuine pop enthusiasts, remain wary: This one is by and large a waterlogged exercise in mediocrity.
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