Normally a review will give a brief introduction about an act, but let’s face it: there’s not much point with Cher Lloyd. You know who she is, I know who she is - even the 1% of the British population who weren’t unwillingly drawn into the bright lights of 2010’s ‘X Factor’ couldn’t help notice Lloyd in passing. You know the one - the girl who constantly looked scorned like she had just been forced to eat a kilo of gravel.
Now Lloyd didn’t win last year’s ‘X Factor’: she came fourth, in fact. Back in my day, not winning meant a one-way ticket to obscurity, and that’s how things should have stayed. Remember ‘One True Voice’? No? Exactly. Me neither - just as it should be.
Yet today the first taste of Lloyd’s solo material has surfaced, and let me be the first to tell you – it is well worth a listen. I say that not because it’s necessarily anything out of the ordinary (or even anything remotely good), but with connections like Will.i.am, Cheryl Cole and producer RedOne (of Lady Gaga, Pixie Lott and JLo fame), the track is sure to be part of the background to your own sticky-floored club experiences for the foreseeable future, so you might as well come to terms with it now.
The opening bars of the track see Lloyd release the term ‘Swagger Jagger’ into the world through a strangely familiar nursery rhyme melody – a term no doubt jumped upon to emulate the success of her Keri Hilson/Soulja Boy cover ‘Turn My Swag On’. Stanger still is the bizarre vocal effect put on her voice, making the 17-year-old sound as if she were singing underwater.
What follows is a verse that even Mystic Meg could have predicted coming from the young singer, a fierce declaration of independence that forms the strongest part of the track. There are echoes of Beyonce’s ‘Run The World (Girls) As Lloyd pouts her way through lines such as “You can’t stop clickin’ at me / writing ‘bout me / tweeting ‘bout me”, and it’s hard not to be impressed by her fiery confidence.
Less impressive, however, is the rest of the track. Lloyd and her producers have attempted to tick all of the boxes, ending up with a song which sounds like a club anthem and a restrained melodic number cut and pasted side-by side. It is no doubt sure to leave Jagerbomb-fuelled clubbers happy, but the track is not without its flaws: The oh-so-familiar chorus line is given the flimsy support of synth strokes plodded onto tape by a year 9 music student, for example.
Worse musical crimes occur as the song reaches its final bars to take a surreal left-turn: the climax sounds like Flux Pavillion, as imitated by someone who strained their ears to the wall at a Flux Pavillion concert, not quite old enough to be allowed in.
Stereoboard Rating – 3.5/10
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