Britain once voted for gobby Newcastle lass Cheryl Cole in sufficient numbers for her to be made-over with some new teeth and put to work in Girls Aloud, the 2002 Popstars - The Rivals TV talent show girl group. Who shocked everyone by not only succeeding commercially - and then some - but also artistically, thanks to their relationship with the Xenomania production team.

It was a fairytale from the get go until the fateful, and early, PR crisis when Cheryl punched a black female toilet attendant and found herself splashed across the tabloids and branded a racist bitch. Somehow she survived that, went on to marry the unpopular (OMG he's black!) soccer star Ashley Cole who publicly humiliated her by cheating on her. She stood by her man (after a nice holiday with the Girls - look no ring, paps!), bonded with Victoria Beckham after copying her above-it-all "I'm Not a WAG" stance, and scored a very profitable gig judging X Factor next to Simon Cowell.

Top all that off with a hugely publicized, mostly lip-synced, puzzingly styled, performance of her debut single on X Factor recently, which the critics hated but has again propelled her to the number one position in the charts, and the once scrappy Geordie lass is ubiquitous in Blighty. Yup, it's been a rocky old road but she's a survivor our Chezza, and Britain loves her for it. 

Now that on-off-on again relationship between Britain and the Girls Aloud singer faces a fresh challenge: a debut solo album nobody asked for. Xenomania are out. Will.i.Am is in, along with other R&B producers for hire. But despite Cole's popularity and her inside track on writers and producers the critical response to 3 Words, which drops today, has not been kind...


MusicOMH: "Swamped with half realised production, R'n'B-lite tunes and never really taking any chances, Cheryl's playing it safe. When are Girls Aloud coming back?"

Guardian: "...whether you care about her marriage or not, all this anxiety and defiance makes for a low-key, shadowy kind of pop record, whose best songs rarely take immediate hold."

Times: "If this is really the best that her “team” can do, then another 3 Words spring to mind. Sack them all."

Popjustice: "...at least half this album is mediocre or worse. It brings us no pleasure at all to say this but this album is everything certain people said it would be - and everything we wrongly believed nobody would let it be."

Digital Spy: "...you'll need a lot of affection for Cole to overlook the album's cringier interludes - the way she sings "with you" as "witchu" on 'Heaven', 'Happy Hour's array of ropey couplets, the shameless plug for Taio Cruz's Rokstarr sunglasses that sullies 'Stand Up'."


There was some good news though. The BBC liked it, so fingers crossed for more media coverage from them, saying, "3 Words does exceed pessimistic predictions, and easily so, packing enough peaks to make [Nadine] Coyle’s inevitable follow-up very much the uphill struggle."

But, perhaps even more importantly, TeenToday suggested that Cheryl's still forgiven for the hat, the military jacket, and the exploding pants that she wore on X Factor, concluding, "Did I hope for more? Yes. Am I entirely surprised? Not really. Do I still love her to bits? Of course."


It seems we're not done with Cheryl Cole yet. Especially if it's true that Nadine "the voice of Girls Aloud" Coyle really is covering Take That's "Back for Good" with Boyz 2 Men. Shudder.