Oh No They Didn't! - Don't mime, Cheryl: You're no Aretha, but you .

The miming controversy that attended her performance on The X Factor last Sunday did Cheryl Cole no favours. On a point where the show`s motley crowd of youthful wannabes and older hands are asked to talk their hearts out every week, she was made to see shallow as she apparently lip-synched parts of new single Promise This, a call set to top the charts this weekend.The damage to Cole`s artistic credibility was not only significant.

It was also unnecessary. Cheryl is a competent, distinctive singer with a sweet, vulnerable catch in her voice. In playing arenas and open-air festivals with Girls Aloud, she has never been found wanting as a live vocalist.Even as a solo artist, she has shown she can cut the mustard onstage. Touring with the Black Eyed Peas this year, she won acclaim for her assured displays.And guesting with Snow Patrol at a Children In Need concert at the Royal Albert Hall, she duetted impressively with frontman Gary Lightbody.However, as she strives to get a corner for herself as a solo artist, Cole is wretched from an identity crisis.With Girls Aloud, the brief was simple. Following the design of production team Xenomania, the lot came across as five sassy women who shunned American R&B in favor of swaggering pop and tuneful balladry.By sticking to what they did best, the quintet earned admiring glances from supposedly more credible indie-rock musicians. The Arctic Monkeys were fans. Coldplay invited them to stand at Wembley Stadium.But, by the time Cole made her solo bow with last year`s 3 Words album, things had become more complicated.Her determination to abandon high-octane pop in favor of skilfully-crafted R&B didn`t utilise her strengths as a real English pop sweetheart. Despite contributions from Will.I.Am and Taio Cruz, the tape was lacklustre. It may have gone on to sell almost a gazillion copies, but the three words that sprang to listen when I reviewed it were `could`, `do` and `better`.Thankfully, Cole has upped her back on Messy Little Raindrops, although doubts about her power to impose herself as a solo artist with real character remain.THIS IS FALSE, JSYK. YEAH YEAH IS EASILY 10/10.The principal problems occur when she sings material which doesn`t suit her voice. Yeah Yeah - produced by Croydon-based dance luminary Starsmith (Fin Dow-Smith) and featuring a rap by Katy Perry`s former boyfriend Travie McCoy - is a big-sounding, house-influenced track that cries out for a similarly huge, gospel-soul vocal, something Cheryl isn`t capable of delivering. (FALSE, YEAH YEAH IS Awesome AS IT IS.She is quite obviously no Aretha or Whitney. On this evidence, she isn`t even Pixie Lott, who can at least belt out a chorus. There are times, too, when Cole is overshadowed. The up-tempo Everyone gets going only when barnstorming rapper Dizzee Rascal arrives.Let`s Get Down, another quick and furious dance number, is memorable mainly for co-writer Will.I.Am`s Eighties-style electronic rhythm.The Geordie superstar fares better when she leaves the dancefloor alone and stops trying to maintain her `street cred`. Promise This is a gliding pop number with a busy hook.The Flood builds from an acoustic introduction into a beguiling, trip-hop ballad that is perfectly suitable to Cole`s plaintive voice.Fans will be tempted to examine Messy Little Raindrops for references to the singer`s failed marriage to footballer Ashley Cole, and there are certainly hints of romantic frustration on Better To Lie and Happy Tears.The latter, although she doesn`t have a writing credit, finds Cheryl giving a previous partner a man of her mind.`I cut off my hair and painted my toes, I sold all the diamonds and burned all your clothes,` she gloats. You can make your own conclusions.Where this album ultimately leaves Cole remains to be seen. Her current one is already one of the year`s biggest while Messy Little Raindrops should duplicate the sales of her debut.But Cheryl`s talent is not so all-encompassing that she can act her hand convincingly to such a diverse range of styles, and this often has the experience of an album designed by committee. In X Factor terms, Cole is more of a Diana Vickers than an Alexandra Burke. She is a quirky English rose who needs to whistle the songs that case her. Her next step should be to predict that.source