Track Listing

1. 3 Words - Cheryl Cole, will.i.am
2. Parachute
3. Heaven - Cheryl Cole, will.i.am
4. Fight For This Love
5. Rain On Me
6. Make Me Cry
7. Happy Hour
8. Stand Up
9. Don't Talk About This Love
10. Heartbreaker - Cheryl Cole, will.i.am
11. Stand Up

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13 in Music
• Released on: 2009-10-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .22 pounds
• Running time: 63 minutes

CD Description
Debut solo album from the Girls Aloud singer, who has risento even greater popularity following her stint as a judge on 'The X Factor'. As opposed to the electro direction of Girls Aloud's recent work, this album has a distinct RnB influence due largely to the production contributions of will.i.amand Taio Cruz. A host of faces from the worlds of pop and dance were also involved, the striking cover portrait was shot by renowned fashion photographer Nick Knight, and the single 'Fight For This Love' is included.

Customer Reviews

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
As a Cheryl Cole fan who so wanted to love this album, I write this review with disappointment oozing from my pores. It took me about 10 listens to like Fight For This Love. I then loved it. With this in mind, I gave the album a few good listens. Perhaps the repetitiveness of songs like Parachute "I don't need a parachute baby if I've got you, baby if I've got you, I don't need a parachute" and Make Me Cry "are you trying to make me cry? are you trying to make me cry? (repeat approximately 87 times) where in fact brilliant and I was somehow missing the point. I decided to gloss over the less than impressive lyrics because even the lyrics to Fight For This Love are terrible. Perhaps she will show off her brilliant voice and impress me. Nope! Not since the release of Victoria Beckham's self-titled debut album have vocals been so bland and uninteresting. In fact, this album has absolutely nothing going for it. Nothing! If you own the single Fight For This Love then you'd be as well just not buying it. There isn't one redeemable song to be found - not one!!! Stand Up puts up a good fight, but Cheryl sings the song with such a lazy droll that she manages to make a dance song send the listener to sleep. The chords used throughout the album are really depressing too. The worst song by far on the album is the absolute drivel that is 3 Words - a song that I can only imagine ever being played at 5am at a house party when everyone is lying on the couch feeling the comedown of the alcohol euphoria they felt a few hours previously. The fact that she's releasing this as the next single is astonishing. But then is it? I have no idea what else she could possibly release as a single from this dire album. With all the money that was thrown at this, she could have come up with something a lot better. Why did she even work with Will.I.Am anyway? I can see the point in maybe working with him for one or two songs, but an entire album??? In one of the songs he makes her sing "whichu" instead of "with you". It sounds ridiculous. It's as though he said "where are you from?" - "Newcastle" - "Nope! You are from gangland New York when you are in my studio, got it???". And - now this is hilarious - the very last track on the album is Will.I.Am's own song Heartbreaker that Cheryl Cole does quite literally only sing three words on. A lot of people are going to feel letdown by this album. So, to summarise. I gave the album a chance. I overlooked the weak production, the depressing chords, the baby-ish lyrics, and the voice that couldn't carry a shopping bag let alone a tune. But what it all comes down to is that this is just a really, really crap album.

It's pop, but not as we know it
When I heard the 30 second song snippets on the album sampler I thought, hmm these all sound repetitive and kind of boring. Having heard the whole thing now, I can safely say I was very very wrong.

Revered and popularised to the point of over-saturation thanks to the X Factor, the backlash against Cheryl Cole has begun in earnest as before anyone had even heard a note of this album the accusations of "she can't sing" and "auto-tuned to oblivion" flooded the internet.

First off, this is not really an RnB album as had been hyped. I mean, there's definitely some RnB flavour going on, but it's mixed in with dancey-pop and is no worse off for it.

The auto-tune argument is a bit pointless, given how prevalent it is nowadays- see Madonna, Kanye West, Britney, and Lady GaGa. Cheryl Cole is never going to be a big-note diva a la Leona Lewis, Beyonce etc. But to criticise her for this would be missing the point. She definitely sounds like a human being throughout though, no overdone Cher-style robot vocals to be found.

As an album, 3 Words is about beats, grooves and catchy tunes. And there's loads of them (9 great ones out of 11) in an album that packs a nice punch at 44 minutes and never outstays its welcome.

Highlights for me are the eerily sparse title track, which kicks in with a nice bit of bass, Heaven, with all it's bells, and 50s style opener, and first single Fight For This Love.

But the whole thing is so damn catchy it's actually hard to pick a favourite. I suspect it will change the more I listen to it. Happy Hour is a quirky sassy tune with a chorus that, somewhat ironically, sounds like it could have come off a Lily Allen record. And while there's no out-and-out ballad on offer, Don't Talk About This Love is probably the mellowest of all the tracks, exuding the kind of chilled out lushness reminiscent of Gwen Stefani's "Cool".

The only song I'm not keen on is Boy Like You, which sounds like they took a bunch of different mixes and spliced them together, not bothering to actually finish the job.

And given that Cheryl is practically a backing vocalist on Heartbreaker, it seems a slightly inauspicious way to end her debut. True, Will.I.am helped pen a lot of the album, but it's a bit over-generous to give him essentially his own track on the thing.

Anyway, to sum up, half of these tunes are suited to getting ready for your night out, the other half you could be hearing in the club. And it gets better with every listen.

When The Show Is Over
The most beautiful woman in the world is taking a break-ette from judging a talent show to hoist a music album on her swooning public. '3 Words' is its title, but it actually has many words: "I don't need a parachute, baby if I got you. Baby if I got you, I don't need a parachute.." she trills mechanically and the world gasps at the momentousness of it all...

If I was in Peter Andre mode, I'd cynically suggest that the most beautiful woman in the world has released a cash-in music album; tidily tying up the latest series of X-Factor and the ferocious oncoming of Christmas, and filling it full of odes and conciliatory noises towards her good-for-nothing footballer husband.
Solid marketing strategy but surely no-ones going to fall for it; surely this time, no-ones going to BITE...!?

Brilliantly, around this time of year, a one-star dismissal of some such or similar creation not only attracts the usual, all year round cry-babies but also the Indignant On-Line Christmas Shopper - a far nastier commenting creature, something along the lines of an Alligator Snapping Turtle.
These festive frighteners can chill the heart of even the most righteous reviewer when they come cruising. They'll be a-looking for a quick fix to the frosty problem of what to buy their loved ones - and God help you if your review doesn't match their bone-idle expectations.
When they receive their music album by the most beautiful woman in the world, they and their spawn will be secretly disappointed; her solo work is plain and oppressive. She's fab and teary when she's championing her disgusting sub-pub turns against the vampire-devil, but she should steer clear of writing/recording herself. Her music album sounds like a hundred other cd's released this year by people who - unluckily for them - aren't the most beautiful woman in the world.

Mid-paced, over-produced pop, lined with bits of hip-hop, trance, funk, rock and pretty much everything else proven profitable in the last decade; it's all here on '3 Words' - played by a computer and sung by something not much above a fembot.
Not forgetting of course, the handful of sickeningly slushy ballads, one of which the most beautiful woman in the world will bravely release as her attempt at the lucrative Christmas No 1.
I predict 'Heaven' - "My Heaven's with you, you, you. My Heaven's with you, you, you..." or perhaps even 'Make Me Cry' - "Are you trying to make me cry, are you trying to make me cry, are you trying to make me cry, are you trying to make me cry..."
Even children will see through this.

The idea of the most beautiful woman in the world stumbling her way through 40-odd minutes of samey, fluttery nonsense is an oddly disturbing one. The risible state of popular culture once again shows both its legacy and its intent for the future - and it's not even pretending to be nice.
Bless her and all that, but she appears to be the figurehead of all-things-blanch-and-corporate in our world, and the REALLY disturbing thing is - and '3 Words' is miserable proof - she doesn't care a jot.

* ½ stars.