I was the apple and fell to the ground and fell brown

Continuing my trip back through the 2010 album charts.

14/11/10 : Messy Little Raindrops - Cheryl Cole


I have to hold my hands up and be honest - back in the day, I listened to Our Cheryl's debut album.  Through choice!  And didn't mind it at all!  Yes, it was "Fight For This Love" that drew me in and it was well ahead of the rest of the album, but it was all perfectly fine.  I've never ventured any further and experienced this though  - I'm not expecting great things from it, but it's going to be listenable, isn't it?

Yeah, it's perfectly serviceable pop - she (or her producers) try to get a bit too street at times for me, which I guess some people like but personally it all feels a bit "try hard".  But when it's just Cheryl and a backing track then there's nothing wrong with it - no, it's not going to set the world alight but you don't always need that.  For me, it does lack a "Fight For This Love", although I was surprised to see that "Promise This" still made it to #1.

We're at #3 in the charts on her second week of a 16 week run, having debuted at #1.  The rest of the top five were Susan Boyle (a new entry), Bon Jovi (a best of), James Blunt (another new entry) and Michael Bublé and there's one more new entry in the top ten with Cee Lo Green just sneaking in at #10.  And the next three new entries are the rockingly contemporary Ray Davies (#12), The Chelsea Pensioners (#14) and Elvis Presley (#19).  And we've got the Benedictine Nuns of Notre-Dame at #24 as well!

Wikipedia has more than I was expecting on the album - I can't help but feel that her social media team have been on the case.  It's very fair in the critical review section though - a lot of the quotes are amusingly negative.  The Independent said "Messy Little Raindrops is music for yoghurt adverts" and NME weighed in with "unsurprisingly, we're not mad for Chezza's manufactured conveyor-belt-drivel" - although nearly everyone said it was better than her previous album, which I remember not minding (I've not been back to it though!).  It did well in Ireland as well as here, but nowhere else went mad for it - funny that, eh?

"Customers also listened to" The Saturdays, Pixie Lott, Alesha Dixon and Sugababes - yeah, all very much up the same street.  Cheryl's always gonna have her knockers but she gives it a good go - no, it's not going to save the world but if it's what you want then it's there for you.

07/11/10 - Some lovely but forgettable songs
21/11/10 - A bizarrely slow album

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