"Is it better, is it worse, are we sitting in reverse."

Off.

(my niece insisted I listen to it...)

I found the lyrics so cringe-inducing that I didn't even notice the quality (or lack of same) of the singing.

I haven't listened to it, but if it's been assembled to sound like some kind of weird sonic Peter Blake collage in sound, then that's ok. Try anything once. But I wouldn't want everything to sound that way.

I hadn't noticed!

Good vid though

Just go with your gut instinct; this is not good pop music.

we had a right to expect better from Cheryl, given that she's a Girl Aloud, which is surely the best pop group on the planet. But I must say the vocal didn't strike me as being particularly odd or creepy, just -- as you say -- overworked. Nadine is the one with the lungs in the group, so it'll be interesting to hear her solo effort.

because of the way they are made. Any hint of personality or life suffocated out of them through the abuse of technology. I struggle to even hear the lyric or melody because I haven't got the patience or the will to dig down beneath layer upon layer of studio fake tan to find them.

I would like to say at this point that I love pop music, but not when it sounds like that.

Awful.

...It's not meant for us. And even the kids who it is 'meant' for haven't gone rushing out to buy it - they haven't made the financial/emotional investment that you made in singles 20/30 years ago (I'm guessing). It will have just landed in their digital lap much like 99% of most current modern culture (we had to go and find it, they have it wired straight into their young and lithe mainframes).Though even Les Grey's and (certainly) Brian Connolly's vocals would have been tweaked by a Chinn or a Chapman or even a Most. So, you've just gotta let go and realise that the past is a different place - we did things differently there.

It's also not meant to be long lasting: it's an advert for the album, but more than that, it's an advert for Cheryl Cole and the juggernaut that is her presence across the media these days. 'Artists' like Mrs Cole don't have a back catalogue, they have a showreel.

are meant to be befuddled by modern pop music.

She'll be performing it (which isn't neccessarily the same thing as singing it) on next Sunday's X Factor results show. Given that the show puts so much emphasis on live singing I'll be interested to see it, espacially as unless something unlikely happens in the mean time it will be the first time I've heard the song. That said, I remember Britney on the X Factor last year and she not was not only miming, but appeared to mouthing a completely different song.

Just to make sure about those leather trousers.

It reminds me of Shania Twain's pop production - she's even got a mid-Atlantic twang to her voice.

Ticks all the current pop boxes:
Black, white and red 80s aesthetic - check.
Funky dancers - check.
Dressing a bit like Janet Jackson on the cover of control - check. (OK that might just be this video...)

It's post-post-modern innit?

I can't hear or see a lot wrong with it, for a 2009 pop record. It's fluff & it's meant to be. No different to much of the 80s output of Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Disposable pop has been with us for a while (ironically). In 20 years when they write the history of this decade in pop Girls Aloud & Cheryl Cole will get a mention - they might even play this on the clips show.

...is that they're a sort of self-piteous glorification of the artist. It's got that bruised tone of voice that they use on TV ads for high end perfume. It only exists as part of a bigger plan - to get people to love and adore Cheryl Cole.

It's slick, over-produced and a bit dull. And she should eat something. If you close your eyes, though, and just listen to the song it goes straight in one ear and out of the other. It doesn't stick in your head and is actually rather forgettable.

It's not offensive to me, just not that interesting. Next...

What with wearing all those tight clothes. She needs to loosen them a bit. Or better still, take them off altogether. Purely for the vocal effect, mind.

I don't care about Girls Aloud. I've only heard two or three of their songs, and, as others have said, I'm happy to accept that it's Not For Me. What I would admit, though, is that those songs I've heard have been bloody well put together, and do their thing with terrifying efficiency. Cheryl Cole's single is nowhere near even that good. It's dull, unmemorable, plastic, trite. It seems to have been run through a computer program whose sole purpose is to root out any traces of humanity or soul that might have strayed in. The singer could be anyone. It's as bad as Victoria Beckham's singles. That's seriously bad.

By the way, another artist I know next to nothing about is Jay-Z. However, I couldn't help but warm to him a little when I saw there's a track on his new album called DOA (Death Of Autotune). Would that this were possible!

Didn't Girls Aloud come from one of Cowell's popstar contests where they go through rigorous auditions, training, hat selections, singing in front of live studio audiences and having her performance critequed by leading industry experts while the viewers at home vote for who's the best at singing? If she managed to make it into the final five from the endless stream of desperate wannabes clamouring hopelessly for the opportunity to be thrust into the nation's heart, shouldn't she be able to sing?

Although, judging by all the "phwooar, gor blimmey, 'ave a bit-of-that" further up the post, I'm assuming her voice wasn't her main selling point.

She had a go at the ex-pole dancer group Candy Rain on Saturday' X-factor for wearing overtly sexy clothes. Like Adman said the video seems to be constructed out of Janet Jackson's out-takes - which shows graphically how current it is. OR is that look now sanctioned for revival already? I don't know I am a middle aged man.

Video apart, as far as I can see this music is mainly aimed at tweenies up to young twenties. Of course the demographic on this website is going to think of it as a dispatch from Tau Centuri. That's the way it should be, shouldn't it? Surely we SHOULD be saying; "look at the way she's dressed, do you call that dancing? And what's more she can't even sing..." or do we want youngsters today to listen to quality stuff like wot we like? I hope not. That way leads to the sadness of; "my twelve year old has great music taste, he even loves my early Floyd albums"

and in Manchester she turned up with David and Dane for a single signing session. Funny really as David did not appear on the track but signed the sleeve nonetheless...

chart-topping POP band since ABBA by quite some distance.

Here's a couple of bits of evidence for the defence that people who've decided they are Not For Them might not have come across.
Both of these are album tracks not singles.

Wait till the chorus (1.15 or so)

a band like Destiny's Child (In the Beyonce days), for example, and they would not be anywhere in the same league - not vocally, not in terms of dress, presentation, depth, emotion or whatever.

We have short memories, in a musical sense.

That's it.

PLEASE!

It has been reported that not only will Cheryl be miming the song on X Factor but it will also be pre-recorded.
Says it all really.

... and then the craft involved here is entirely Xenaphobia's (forgive spelling if that's wrong but I can't be arsed checking at this time of night). take off La Cole etc and replace with 5 other female voices and you still have great pop records. Do the same with Steps (yes, I did say Steps) or with any number of similar partnerships where the window dressing is just a front for the genuine talent that makes classic pop.
You CAN extend the argument as far as ABBA but it's a far tougher one to justify

It's always been possible to prove that Pop Music has reached the end of its tether by playing a single track. What would you have thought if your Dad played you a slightly rubbish track from your youth, ad used it as proof that the whole apple was rotten. Probably the wrong way of going about it, in my opinion.

I will beilieve that its died when there's no song that will convince me it's still alive. And I can't really ever see that happenning. A song like Black Jacks shows me it isn't - and I bet most of the posters here have an equivalent.