Cheryl Cole: Messy Little Raindrops – review

Such is the overbearing nature of Cole's celebrity it's difficult for her music to feel anything other than beside the point. Messy Little Raindrops has marginally more zip than last year's 3 Words , throwing in some hooky house-pop ("Yeah Yeah", "Waiting") among the airbrushed R&B and quasi-autobiographical ballads. But every move it makes sounds crushingly focus-grouped, from the expendable Dizzee Rascal cameo on "Everyone" to the aping of Owl City's electro-whimsy on "Hummingbird". Given the Xenomania-directed wizardry of her Girls Aloud oeuvre, that can only register as a serious disappointment.