Album review: Cheryl Cole

SEE? It's not always the best singers who get the solo career, as Cheryl Cole beats her Girls Aloud bandmates to the punch by virtue of being the nation's sweetheart, or something.

3 Words begins inauspiciously with the downbeat title track and just about lathers itself up into a mediocre dance-pop album with feeble-to-middling tracks which will sound inoffensive enough on the radio.

Cole sounds like any old airbrushed diva, so it's all business as usual there – but without the terrific, freaky pop songs which have given Girls Aloud such surprising longevity.