Cheryl Cole - Messy Little Raindrops

This isn't an official album review; more like an album overview. I decided not to buy this album after reading reviews of it. I gave 3 Words a good review, but that was mostly on the basis of the few really solid songs on it, namely the title track plus "Fight For This Love," "Heaven," and "Parachute." Apart from them, most of the other songs were either fairly decent or only so-so, making 3 Words a rather uneven album.

So rather than buy the whole album, I decided to focus on the few tracks that have the potential to be the album's standouts:

• "Promise This." This is the album's first single, in fact, this weeks #1 hit in Britain. It's a pretty good, upbeat dance pop song produced by Wayne Wilkins, the principal producer of the album (5 of its 12 tracks).
• "Yeah Yeah." This is a really cool song, mostly because it sounds a lot like something Kylie Minogue would do--pulsing, clubby dance pop. It's produced by Starsmith (who in fact produced "Put Your Hands Up" for Kylie's latest album) It would be a tragedy if this isn't a future single. Despite the fact that Cheryl gets a little lost in the glittery production, it's still a stomping great song.
• "The Flood." This will be the follow-up single. It's also produced by Wayne Wilkins. It's a big pop ballad in the Ryan Tedder tradition. Although it shared the name with the current Take That single, it isn't near as good. It's okay, but not groundbreaking. And given recent global catastrophes, the lyrics could even be considered a bit insensitive ("a natural disaster love").
• "Let's Get Down." Many of the best 3 Words tracks were those produced by Will.I.Am, so I had to include something from him. Unfortunately, he only produced two cuts on this album and, although this is the better of the two, it's nowhere near as good as the stuff he was doing with her last year. He must be saving all his good tricks for the new Black Eyed Peas album.

So even if these are the best tracks from the album, they aren't blowing me away, so I think I made the right choice. Obviously Cole has had a tumultuous year, but Raindrops feels like a rush job that hasn't allowed her to appropriately process those experiences into interesting music (assuming she would be inclined to do so).