OMG what is this!? Nicola trying a solo career? I was sneaking around here yesterday and found the Porcelain Heart snippet and I couldn't wait to get home today and listen to it again. Why is this only a B-side though?
NME Review Nicola Roberts' Solo Single - Shock Horror, It's Really Good
By Priya Elan
Posted on 17/05/11 at 11:43:17 am
Quote:
You’d imagine that sometime in the annals of pop history the idea of a member of a popular boy or girl band 'going solo' was met with genuine anticipation and not a whole heap of trepidation that they’d teamed up with David Guetta or something.
As we leap over the solo pop corpses of the likes of Mel B, JC Chasez and Brian McFadden is it possible that a solo pop star could re-awake from the coma of a pop past chiefly remembered for chucking it in due to a disagreement over a jacket?
It seems unlikely. Obviously there are heroes like Justin Timberlake or the occasional Top 40 ‘moment’ from the likes of a Mel C or a Robbie Williams, usually born out of a slippery bitterness at the memory of having to ego clash with the ‘other four’.
In Girls Aloud case, we’ve had Nadine Coyle’s Tesco sponsored-escapade into Commitments territory which generally flat-lined and Cheryl Cole’s passive reinvention as a modern r’n’b cipher. Neither, of course, had the spit, giggle, bloody minded weirdness of Xenomania’s Girls Aloud however. That is until Nicola Robert’s solo single.
‘Beat Of My Drum’ feels like the first exciting pop moment of 2011. It judders with a half- dancehall smile (you’re reminded of MIA’s early stuff) and a ‘Hollaback Girl’ poise. Co-written by Major Lazer, it stands out from the duo’s other big pop collaboration (Beyonce’s ‘Girls (Who Run The World)’) by wont of not subsuming the singer’s personality under layers of intricate electronic squiggles and bleeps. Roberts’ at times brattish and bold but unflinchingly herself.
It’s in her self-knowledge that you’re reminded she was the bullied one who had to constantly justify her position in the band. The lyrics of 'Beat Of My Drum' cleverly echo the public’s narrative of Girls Aloud’s ‘other member’. In the track she’s a ’baby’ with ’two left feet’, who manages to ’turn this whole thing round’.
There’s an insistent, almost panicky quality to the track that is reminiscent of G.A’s most bonkers/best work- a sense of seaside-surreality, a ‘British’ pop sense that has been missing from the airwaves for far too long.
Assured and a little crazy, ‘Beat Of My Drum’ is a brilliant pop moment from an unlikely source.
The Guardian With Cheryl Cole available, does Nicola Roberts stand in the way of a Girls Aloud reunion?
Posted by Dan Martin
Thursday 26 May 2011 13.20 BST
Quote:
After losing her US X Factor gig, Cheryl Cole could consider reuniting Girls Aloud – but her unloved (?) former bandmate has now made a brilliant solo record.
Cole shoulder? ... Nicola Roberts's solo debut could delay a Girls Aloud reunion.
Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
So Cheryl Cole has been booted off US X Factor and will surely face a public backlash if she risks a return to the UK after seeming to grow too big for her boots. One question surrounds whether she should start again as a judge on the UK version, but surely a better route back to the nation's heart would lie in reuniting Girls Aloud, for which surely there remains an appetite even now. Cole achieved huge success with her solo career, but with all the will in the world, none of her music constituted anything more than the kind of automated factory pop that British artists do so badly, and that her old group subverted so magically.
Strangely enough, the stumbling block to such an eventuality now appears to be The Mouse That Roared: Nicola Roberts. Her Diplo-produced debut single Beat of My Drum is a slice of jittery pop excellence, and its slogan of empowerment is certainly more effective than the one certain others have been hyping. Who'd have thought she would be picked as a new act to watch in 2011?
Roberts has been the source of abuse for her looks and seemingly mousey personality. Not only does Beat of My Drum brilliantly skewer that perception, it provides the next twist in what's turning into a compelling story. When they first started, a common complaint was that Girls Aloud were too similar to the Spice Girls. Yet as they developed, their personalities blossomed. Nadine was tipped as the one with The Voice, only to be eclipsed by Cheryl, before eventually releasing a weird mid-Atlantic soft-rock record that not even Tesco could flog. Now it looks like being Nicola's time in the sun.
Could it be that Cheryl's nation's sweetheart narrative was merely one arc in a story that's already confounded expectations of how long a pop group is supposed to last? Will Sarah make it as an actor after all? Is Kimberley going to have a future bigger than ITV2? This is where it gets complicated.
Reason why I'm on the verge of becoming a HUGE Nicola fan
1. Her name is Nicola! Nuff said....
2. She looks intriguing....
3. She's KILLING 98% of all the pop music artist out right now with TWO songs....insanity!
