CD: Cheryl - A Million Lights

Apparently Cheryl Cole is now “the nation’s sweetheart”. These days that doesn’t mean broadcasting sung radio support to a besieged island while the Nazis plot our demise 21 miles across the English Channel. No, instead, all it requires is smiling dutifully behind the gnome-like ancient Queen beside a load of passive, botoxed old pop stars while Madness’s saxophonist goofs about as if he were the only actual human being left in the entertainment industry.

Do we really have to talk about the music? Surely that’s not the point of Cheryl Cole? Or “Cheryl” - what a fucking yawn - as she now styles herself. She could shit in a bowl and morons would buy it. Millions of them, apparently, probably while bitching about pics of her cellulite in some crap-sheet bought at the checkout at Tesco’s. Snobbery? Bollocks! Cole came from a raw, rough Newcastle background, it’s true, but does that mean her plastic dollybird shtick and songs are in any way pertinent to a ropey UK where brutish fiscal inequality is the name of the game? While an innocuous enough person (once they'd shaved away her temper and ability to say anything interesting), she’s now just another smokescreen drooled over by the dull craven media to keep our eyes off the ball.

The music is forgettable. Well, that’s not quite true, there are a couple of bombastic electro-ballads marinated in dubstep flavour – “Mechanics of the Heart” and the title track - that have shades of interest. The rest, well, Gaga did it brilliantly first and best, and now we must wear these endless re-runs, like “Goober and the Ghost Chasers” to Gaga’s “Scooby Doo”. And any album whose opening song contains the line, “Is this really my life now? I’m over you and I’m sober too.” Come on - is that what it’s all about? Really? In short, no, it really isn’t.

Watch the video for "Call My Name" - supposedly empowering, materially fixated, pole-dancey naffness