I know I must be getting old because I just listened to Darkness, the new song from Leonard Cohen, and didn't flinch at his croaky old "singing" style. However, I have yet to be convinced that the performer on this record isn't an over-amplified tortoise.
The guitar motif in the intro, on the other hand, is sublime.
Now, in case anyone thinks I'm losing it, here is the new Nicola Roberts b-side.
Let's get this out of the way now: PJ Harvey does not feature in this Top 10 (which is actually a top 11, because I miscounted). Let England Shake topped everyone else's polls and is, on an intellectual level, a brilliant treatise on war and history. But I never woke up singing lyrics like "What if I take my problems to the United Nations?".
So these are the albums that embedded earworms in my brain. The ones I cued up on every car journey. The ones I actually listened to...
11) Lady Gaga - Born This Way
On the face of it, Born This Way is a deeply unlovable album. The production is harsh, the artwork is horrible and the tunes simply aren't there. But if you carefully select the highlights (Edge Of Glory's sax solo, Sheiße's pomposity-pricking humour and the title track's towering chorus) it's a hell of a lot of fun.
10) The Pierces - You & I
The cover of The Pierces' fourth album is designed to look like an care-worn old record, with a ghostly imprint of the vinyl visible on the sleeve. The music is a similarly faithful recreation of a bygone era - lush with harmony and classic, timeless melodies. When the polished perfection threatens to become too winsome, the band flash a glimpse of their darker side, as on the possessive growl of Love You More. Tailor-made for radio, this didn't do as well as it deserved.
9) Katy B - On A Mission
Kathleen Brien wrote songs about going to the club, her plans to go to the club, picking up boys at the club and the aftermath of having been to the club. Thankfully, it wasn't as soul-sappingly tedious as that sounds. A night out with Ms B sounds thrilling and magical, everyone clamouring for one more dance before catching the night bus home. One reviewer described On A Mission as "a glowstick Alice in Wonderland" and, frankly, I can't do better than that.
8) Noah And The Whale - Last Night On Earth
A big old FM rock album, directly inspired by Tom Petty, with choruses bigger than mountains. It's almost as if Noah and the Whale were bored of pining after Laura Marling and wanted to have some fun...
7) Beyoncé - 4
"Apparently", Beyoncé is a secret math nerd. Her album was called 4, it featured one song called 1+1 and another, Countdown, which was a tribute to Carol Vorderman's mental arithmetic skills [subs - please check].
Less edgy than her previous albums, 4 is steeped in classic soul - from the Randy Crawford-isms of Love On Top, to the Purple Rain grandstanding of 1+1's guitar solo. It all adds up (ha!) to become Beyoncé's most consistent album to date, even though it was apparently sequenced by a monkey stabbing pins into a dartboard.
6) Foster The People - Torches
You might have noticed that this top 10 is a bit oestrogen-y. Well, this is the antidote: A trio of California dudes who aren't shy of a pop hook. They may have been fêted by the indie kids because of their disturbing lyrics and quirky production techniques (he's singing through a megaphone, LOL) - but Foster The People were as shamelessly mainstream as Russell Grant being fired out of a cannon.
5) Metronomy - The English Riviera
The English Riviera opens with the sound of seagulls and a string quartet and ends with a woozy techno ode to Jill Scott. In between, it references Serge Gainsbourg, Ace Of Bass and end-of-pier Wurlitzers. It sounds bonkers - it is bonkers - but it's also a superbly-crafted record, with more musical twists and turns than a bowl of spaghetti.
4) Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes
She's a cheery sort, Lykke Li, declaring "sadness is my boyfriend" and singing wistfully of being "kicked 'til I drown". You have to hope she's seeking professional help... but would a happy, well-adjusted Lykke Li make music as mesmerising as this? From the depraved sexual pounding of Get Some, to the echo-drenched Sadness Is A Blessing, this is the most exciting album about loneliness and depression ever made.
3) Florence and the Machine - Ceremonials
Listening to Florence and the Machine is a bit like standing in a wind tunnel full of kettles - invigorating but painful. Once you get past the bluster and chaos of this over-produced album, however, you might notice that it's rammed full of tunes. Shake It Out is the best song about a horse since Father Ted, while Spectrum showcases Florence's surprisingly versatile vocal range. If there had been a few extra moments of levity - like the frothy Breaking Down - this would have been a contender for number one.
2) Nicola Roberts - Cinderella's Eyes
"I had to call the fireman, my hair was burning bridges.
I'm shooting bullets from my chest. I'm Superwoman, bitches.
And if my balls of steel have got stuck half-way down your pipe,
I brought some KY, time to open, open, open wide."
Dear all other pop stars, you have been served your notice.
Yes, that's right: It's a team ginger triumph in the top three...
She turned up out of the blue, univited, and conquered the planet. 21 is not cool, it is not original, it is not remotely contemporary - but Adele Laurie Blue Adkins' 11 tales of heartbreak, revenge, and more heartbreak and revenge touched millions. It's inspired by soul, gospel and country, but the album is defined by that voice. Adele has a clarity of tone so pure you suspect that, somewhere in the fiery depths of hell, the devil has a tiny leather box with her soul in it. Good album, though.
It's that time of year again... As usual, the top 10 is dictated by my iTunes play count so I can't pretend I was cool and listening to Gil Scott-Heron all year, because I wasn't. It was this instead.
10)Nicola Roberts - Beat Of My Drum
One thing we learned this year is that, if you want the lead single from your album to be a gargantuan chart hit, you shouldn't get Diplo to produce it. Beyoncé flopped with Run The World (Girls), but turned things around with her mega-spectacular Glastonbury performance. Nicola Roberts had to make do with T4 On The Beach - where someone hit her on the head with a beach ball. Poor Nicola
9) Britney Spears - 'Til The World Ends
In which the lyrics of an REM song were set to the refrain of Baltimore's Tarzan Boy. Apocalypse Wow.
8) Adele - Someone Like You
A lady, a piano, a broken heart, a televised tear, a sales phenomenon, a modern classic. Of all the songs in the top 10, Someone Like You has the most passionate, believable vocal. Why isn't it higher? Because I can't shake the feeling that the key line: "I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over" simply doesn't scan.
7) Chase & Status ft Liam Bailey - Blind Faith
You simply can't go wrong by sampling Loleatta Holloway's Love Sensation and, in the year that she died, Chase And Status brought her disco classic bang up to date. Liam Bailey must have two-ton balls of steel, though. A total newcomer, he does all the vocal heavy lifting, ramping up the tension in the bridge so that Holloway's lines work as a pressure-release, arms-in-the-sky, hugging-complete-strangers moment. An absolute corker.
6)The Pierces - Glorious
I'm a sucker for a sun-kissed harmony, and this song is buckling under the weight of them. The middle 8 section - "I felt his hand today / Across my shoulder, I kneeled down to pray" - where the Pierce sisters go all coquettish and ethereal makes my spine tingle. A vain attempt to work out the intricacies of their pitching is what propelled this song into the top 10.
But I hadn't realised until recently that Glorious is a cover of an obscure 2007 single by US band The Levy. The original is a bit mopey, this is almost perfect.
5)SBTRKT ft Little Dragon - Wildfire
If Wildfire doesn't make your bottom move, then your bottom is malfunctioning.
4) Metronomy - The Bay
I swear that The Bay's synth riff intro is a tribute to Abba's Money Money Money (distressingly, if you type Money Money Money into YouTube, the second result is Jessie J's Price Tag, a song that wasn't even within sniffing distance of this list).
The track is probably the most explicit of the "I LOVE TORQUAY" songs on Metronomy's album about how much they love Torquay, which is really quite a lot. Crammed full of hooks and a strutting, sinewy bassline, it was also the best single they released in 2011. Even the remixes were superb: In particular Erol Alkan's extended version and the Cloud Control reworking, which took Joseph Mount's London-Paris-Tokyo lyrics and turned them into an existential techno travel advert.
The video, the band admitted, was a parody of Will Smith's Miami, filmed in England's sunny Torbay. Is there anything about this song that isn't incredible?
3) Lana Del Rey - Video Games
Gloomy and sexy like a David Lynch film, this song is simply beautiful.
2) Lykke Li - Sadness Is A Blessing
Gloomy and sexy like a David Lynch film, this song is simply beautiful.
1) Adele - Rolling In The Deep
Adele's producer Paul Epworth was interviewed on posh-nobs radio show Front Row last week, and talked about the making of Rolling In The Deep... Adele came to him with the opening line "There's a fire, starting in my heart" and they knocked out the song in an afternoon. It's an amazing piece of work - at once elemental, powerful and vulnerable.
Epworth deserves as much credit as Adele. There's a breath-stopping moment in the interview where he picks up the guitar he used on the track and chops out those muted opening chords. Even on a tinny broadcast microphone, it sounds almost like the recorded version, which goes to show how simple and clean his recordings are. Adele's writing and singing on 21 is fantastic, but its the production makes them leap out of your speakers like a panther. A big ginger panther with a filthy laugh. Song of the year.
Honourable mentions (aka "why didn't I listen to this as much as I thought I did?"): Robyn - Call Your Girlfriend / Florence & The Machine - Shake It Out / Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers / Michael Kiwanuka - Tell Me A Tale / Ronika - Forget Yourself / Kanye West - All The Lights / Emeli Sandé - Heaven / Beyoncé - 1+1 / Aloe Blacc - I Need A Dollar / Sleigh Bells - Rill Rill / Rizzle Kicks - Down With The Trumpets / Foster The People - Call It What You Want / Bombay Bicycle Club - Shuffle
When you watch Yo Yo, the new video by Nicola Roberts, you will notice a lot of empty white space in the frame. I can only assume that the director's original intention was to add a CGI character - EG a happy chocolate chip cookie - but ran out of money before work could be completed.
Because I am a caring, sharing type of person - I have taken a couple of stills from the video and photoshopped in the missing character, who shall henceforth be known as Gary The Biscuit. I think you will agree it is a complete triumph.
Here is the unfinished* version of the video. The song is quite brilliant, by the way.
My, my - this weekend has been a veritable goldmine of brilliant music. None of it on our televisions, of course. That would be too much to ask. Still, here's what's happening with some of the biggest Discopop Directory all-stars...
1) Nicola Roberts is still allowed to release singles
Which is a good thing because Yo-Yo, the third release from her album Cinderella's Eyes is the best so far.
It's not out until January - but here's Nicola performing it, all acoustic and spooky, at something called the "BT Digital Music Awards".
This performance of Countdown is worth watching just for ?uestloves hi-hat paradiddles. If you prefer pretty women to watching drummers, I suppose Beyonce is reasonably attractive.
3) Little Boots lets us hear her new single
There was a sneak preview of Shake (Until Your Heart Breaks) on the Little Boots mixtape I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. The full track got its first radio play on Annie Mac's Radio One show the other night and it sounds incredible - like St Etienne covering La Isla Bonita, remixed by Inner City. A return to Little Boots club origins, this is much more in the vein of Stuck On Repeat than Remedy. Hooray!
4) Yasmin revives a late 1980s hip-hop drum sample
Yasmin is back with a Ms Dynamite duet called Light Up (The World). The drum loop will be familiar to anyone who's heard King Bee's Back By Dope Demand. And crate-diggers will know the sample originally comes from the Lyn Collins track Think. To be honest, the Yasmin song makes it too prominent, overpowering what is at heart quite a sweet reggae melody. Still, the video is a sumptuous feast of Cuban loveliness.
Up-and-coming girl band War Of Words have had their album written by Ben off of La Roux, so it's not entirely surprising that he's been in the studio making a remix of their first single that sounds slightly more like La Roux. It goes like this.
Not only does it appear that Nicola is directing you to a BBC URL that ends in the word "poo" - which is amazing enough - but following that link will also result in you watching Labrinth, Tinie Tempah, a string quartet and the world's most incongruous choir playing Earthquake in the Radio 1 Live Lounge.
This performance is fucking incredible and that is not up for discussion.
The blurb on the BBC website says this will be available for 28 days - IE until 18th November. If you've arrived at this blog post in the future, try searching on YouTube. Someone is bound to have ripped it off by then.
From next week, you will be able to purchase Nicola Roberts' solo album Cinderella's Eyes. It is something you should seriously consider, not just because the ailing economy needs your support, but because it is a bold artistic statement that also happens to be an excellent pop album. These things don't come along that often.
In an effort to persuade you to part with your £7.99, Nicola has just performed one of the standout album tracks, I, exclusively for the NME.
If you've found her singles a little irritating (and I agree, her I AM DEAD QUIRKY, ME vocals are something of an acquired taste) then steer clear. But if you're the sort of person who likes to hear pop's conventions being tackled head on with a generous helping of dry wit, then you should check it out.
Ever since the viral success of F**k You, lyric videos have become hugely desirable marketing tools. Cheap but effective, they siphon fans away from unofficial, low-quality "radio rips" on YouTube, giving the artist time precious time to make a proper music video after their song premieres.
But Cee-Lo's lyrics were written by somebody with a keen grasp of idiom and metaphor. They were also very funny. Not everyone can be so talented lucky. Having fatally misunderstood the entire concept, Alexis Jordan released a lyric video for her new single Laying Around With You last week. The lyrics were punishingly banal in the first place ("What I wouldn't give to cook you dinner in the microwave") but having them spelt out in front of your eyes will cause your melt your brain.
But, lo! To the rescue come Labrinth and Nicola Roberts. Both have made their latest lyrics available online for your discernment and scrutiny.
Labrinth gets Tinie Tempah to repay the favour he paid on Frisky, by getting him to star as featured vocalist on Earthquake. Going for a playful-but-dumb vibe, the duo namecheck Labrinth's label boss Simon Cowell: "Hey Simon, we be fucking them up / Turning em Syco, everybody rock".
Roberts takes the opposite approach. Sticks and Stones, a preview track from her imminent debut album Cinderella's Eyes is 100% designed to make you cry. Get the tissues ready.
Thanks for your patience while I've been off in Africa for a month... It was an incredible trip. Heartbreaking and breathtaking. Beautiful and desolate. As you can see above, the school we visited in the remote village of Kongwa was bursting with exuberance despite the shortcomings in food and finance and elementary learning materials. Hopefully we'll be back before long.
So, what have I missed? A quick scan of my favourite internet websites suggests the music industry didn't take August off for once... Here's the best stuff I've seen so far.
1) LADY FINALLY LAYS THOSE PENIS RUMOURS TO REST
The gender-bending video for Yoü & I is what experts would term a "return to form" for pop's premier pixel pervert. A country and western version of Frankenstein's Bride, it continues Gaga's theme of beauty and decay. As well as dressing as a slack-jawed yokel, she poses in a fabulous hat, transforms into a mermaid in a bathtub and a sets up a terriffic reverse dolly shot at 3'30". Well done.
2) THE RETURN OF THE AMPERSANDS
Florence and Marina and the Machine and the Diamonds are back to trouble your eardrums. Hooray!
Marina has added new layers of confusing nomenclature by channelling her new songs through Electra Heart. Her bleach blonde heroine is not an alter ego but a character in a modern Greek tragedy, as she explained to Popjustice. The new single is called Radioactive, which is an excellent song masquerading as a moronic radio hit. And that's the really clever bit.
Marina released another Electra Heart video last week, called Fear And Loathing. It acts as a scene-setter for the single and is, I suspect, the better song.
Florence Welch, meanwhile, unveiled the first track from the follow-up to her multi-million-seller Lungs on Tuesday. It's something of a slow burner, but the final minute is the best psychedelic rock wig-out you'll hear this side of Christmas. The video also reveals Florence's hitherto unacknowledged debt to Miranda Hart's choreography.
Gary Lightbody shows off his comedy chops in the video for Called Out In The Dark - which also stars Jack "Pirates Of The Caribbean" Davenport. The escalation of the storyline is beautifully done, and the song's not bad either.
6) NICOLA ROBERTS DANCES IN THE STREET Beat Of My Drum didn't quite set the charts on fire. In fact, it barely produced enough heat to warm a crumpet. That didn't stop it being brilliant, though. Nicola's follow-up, Lucky Day, is more obviously radio friendly but a much weaker song. Radio 1 have passed on it, and mrsdiscopop described it as "Kylie crossed with Cilla Black". Oh dear.
Nicola Roberts is following up Beat Of My Drum with Lucky Day. She has celebrated this fact by going to the laundrette and growing orange magnolias out of her busom. No wonder she looks so happy.
As often happens, Friday has come around and there's a ton of new music that didn't quite warrant its own blog post this week, but which doesn't deserve being consigned to the dumper either.
This is mind-boggling. French DJ Madeon creates an entirely new song out of bits of 39 other songs. Oh, and he does it live, playing the samples in off a 64-button Novation Sample Pad. There are bits of Kylie, Jacko, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Daft Punk in there... Astonishing work.
Multimedia teen brand Pixie Lott is back with a new single All About Tonight, which roughly translates as *yawn* All About Going To The Club. (I keep meaning to ask - why is there only one club?). This isn't the barnstorming comeback Pixie needed to reinvigorate her see-saw chart career... but it's better than, say, anything Jason Derulo has ever written. And by 'written', I of course mean 'stolen'.
The video is mainly notable for the hilarious legs akimbo dance routine (see above). Pixie Lott has long legs, in case wall-to-wall tabloid coverage had failed to make you aware of this fact.
*6 Music face* Sufjan Stevens is a hugely talented artist given to massive bouts of creativity and self-indulgence. His new album, The Age Of Adz, contains delicate moments of ephemeral beauty and a bunch of songs that waffle on for 10 minutes about absolutely fuck all. This is one of the former - and it comes with a mesmerising stop-motion video, which Sufjan directed all on his own, despite previously suffering a nervous breakdown during Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox.
Another one of DJ Earworm's semi-annual mash-ups for Capital FM. He's kind of hamstrung by the alarming lack of decent pop music this year, but the juxtaposition of LMFAO and Katy B is sublime.
5) Niki And The Dove - Gentle Roar
Unbelievably, people are still persisting with the whole "[female name] and the [noun]" concept. Latest off the block are Niki And The Dove, a Swedish duo signed to the ultra-hip Subpop label. Subverting the "Alice And The Cheese Grater" subgenre, they make earthy, pagan click-pop, which sounds like Florence Welch swallowing Radiohead. Very classy.
As discovered by the incomparable Robot Pigeon blog, here is Nicola Roberts being hit on the head with a beach ball (scroll through to 2'40"). Nice work, everyone.
Here it is: The heavily-trailed b-side to Nicola Roberts' still-not-out-yet Beat Of My Drum. You only get your hands on it if you buy the CD single, a marketing technique which now seems as antiquated as calling the second track on a CD "the b-side".
While Beat Of My Drum is a sonically-adventurous journey into Nicola's fragile psyche, Disco, Blisters And A Comedown stays closer to the Girls Aloud template - whizzy electropop, brutal chorus, lyrics about getting plastered and snogging a minger.
It's a fantastic three minutes of pop, staggering from one lyrical highlight: "2am I think I am Gaga, maybe I've gone too far, I'm dancing on the bar" to another "Why do the lights in the kebab shop make this guy look less hot? He's looking like John Prescott." (*applause*)
Nonetheless, you can see why the song's been demoted to supporting status. Given the avant-garde experimentalism of Nicola's new material, putting this out as a single (as some of the more "vocal" Girls Aloud fans are claiming she should have done) would have raised false expectations for the album. Worse, Nicola would have looked stuck in the past, desperately clinging to the memories of meeting Terry Wogan on Children In Need and Nadine's adorable habit of not turning up to major awards ceremonies.
PS: If you don't want to fork out five quid for the CD single, you'll be relieved to know that Disco, Blisters And A Comedown will be the bonus track on Nicola's debut album, Cinderella's Eyes, out on 3rd October.
Here's the tracklist: Beat Of My Drum
Dance In The Rain
Pretty Persuasion
Sticks & Stones
Porcelain Heart
Take A Bite
Dating
I
Yo Yo
Cinderella’s Eyes
Lucky Day
Been There, Done That
Want You (So Bad)
Wanna Dance
Disco, Blisters & A Comedown (UK Bonus Track)
A couple of days earlier than anticipated, Nicola Roberts has released the video for her debut single, Beat Of My Drum. As I've been mentioned before, this single is 100% A GOOD THING, like ice cream and zebras.
Does the video fulfil that promise? Yes and no...
As the track begins, Nicola steps gingerly (sorry) towards the microphone, looking like a nerve-wracked X Factor contestant. It's a neat illustration of the lyrics, which describe her awkward beginnings in Girls Aloud - "Baby in the corner, learning quick. Keep up, keep up, keep up."
What needs to happen next is a shot of Nicola emerging, transformed from her cocoon and commanding the stage like Lady Gaga taming tigers in a Russian circus. But the video plays it a little too cool. The dancing is fresh and fluid, but lacks that crucial element of ball-busting confidence. Maybe the heels were a mistake?
Things start to improve in the drum breakdown, which is handily signposted by the presence of some drums.
And this particular move is fierce...
Finally, it all kicks off in time for the coda. Nicola celebrates by dressing up as Cher Lloyd in chunky knitwear. Note the sophisticated side pony tail.
Overall, 6/10. The video will be gobbled up by Nicola's dyed-in-the-wool fans (and, believe you me, they've really come out of the woodwork on Twitter in the last fortnight) but I'm not convinced it'll convert the non-believers.
I'll keep my fingers crossed, though. As a champion of brave, innovative day-glo pop, I'd love this to be a whopping great hit when it hits iTunes on Sunday.
1) The chorus of Beat Of My Drum sounds like M.I.A. covering Daphne & Celeste - i.e. unquestionably excellent.
2) Nicola has studiously avoided making a record for the sort of people who write glossy magazine articles about Pippa Middleton's miracle diet or different sorts of people who sit in radio station playlist meetings pretending to be 14 years younger than they actually are. Instead, she's followed her heart and made a bold and experimental pop album that's a huge personal statement. At times it's uncomfortably personal - and it's all the better for it.
3) She's got a sense of humour, too. "I hope that one day we'll stop striving for perfection / I hope that everybody loves my new direction." That is a good lyric.
4) A sitar! On a solo album by one of Girls Aloud! And it's not even a lazy Beatles' pastiche! Amazing.
5) The verses of Yo Yo echo of the bittersweet melody of Dusty Springfield's I Only Want To Be With You - a song that, tonally and lyrically, seems to be a touchstone for the entire project.
6) The explicit references to how she battled with her self-image during the early days of Girls Aloud: "I don't like nasty words / They hurt me like you'd never know / But don't think I won't put on a smiley face and do the show." (Or indeed, "do The Show", as in epic Girls Aloud tune, "The Show"). Bless her cotton socks.
7) Nicola is not afraid to make her voice sound ugly at the service of a song.
8) The lyrics reveal a girl who took public criticism to heart, and had that insecurity interpreted as stand-offishness. The music reveals a girl who no longer gives a flying fuck what you think, bitches.
9) First you'll hate it. Then you'll get it. Then you'll love it.
Long answer: She's working with Diplo (amazing) Dragonette (AMAZING) Metronomy (generally above average) and Dimitri Tikovoi (the jury's out).
In other words, Nicola is dragging the Girls Aloud sound into a back alley, roughing up its hair, scratching its back and planting lipstick on its collar. Even the b-sides have immense titles like Disco, Blisters And A Comedown. Key words for reviews could include: unique, unexpected, mature, leftfield and - for old time's sake - ginger.
The idea that Nicola's music will be more... er, "experimental" than her bandmates' solo efforts is supported by the promo campaign, which has so far involved posting random pictures of Nicola's feet all over Twitter.
"The album has a very British sound," says Nicola in a press release. "The stories I tell are things that have happened to me and life in general. Some are happy, some songs are a little cheeky and one song is sad."
One song is sad: I love that.
Lyrically, Popjustice has been spilling the beans on the project. Lots of the songs are about growing up in the spotlight. Nicola was the ingénue of Girls Aloud - an innocent, small town girl subjected to the full and sudden blast of Britain's media klaxons. And, with her alabaster skin and teenage demeanour, she initially came in for a lot of criticism.
"I was too young for so many things," goes one of the lyrics, "yet you thought I'd cope with being told I'm ugly over and over. I'd read it, believe it, said no to the shrink. I can fix it, I think..."
(This might be the sad one).
On a happier note, fans of Nicola saying "frankly, I don't even care" on No Good Advice will be pleased to hear the album contains further instances of 'rapping'.
So far, the only music you can actually listen to comes in the form of a teaser video. Posted on YouTube last night, it shows Nicola in a recording studio, while a minimalist drum loop clatters along. Supposedly from her debut single, Beat Of My Drum, the instrumental snippet also features a couple of sampled voices and detuned synth drones.
It's all very Diplo... but the video keeps returning to footage a shiny grand piano. So there's still time for this to turn into a Celine Dion number.
As exciting as this may be for pop fans, there's no telling what the public is going to make of it all.
Nadine Coyle proved that residing affection for Girls Aloud is no guarantee of success. And the fluctuating fortunes of Ellie, Marina and Little Boots illustrate the difficulty of sustaining a synth-based solo career in the era of "Jason Derulo" and "LMFAO" (or, as I like to call them, FFS). Even Cheryl Cole's The Flood stalled at number 18 earlier this year...
So, in summary: Good luck, Nicola. You look like you're doing something interesting and, even if this all goes a bit Siobhan Donaghy, we'll still love you.
