This new Leona single *awkward pause*

It may have taken me a whole two months to get over this debacle, but ultimately, there is far more in the tangled world of pop to get angry about. 2010 has seen, thus far, "Little Joe" finally get that bloody number 1 everyone realise yet again how bloody amazing Bad Romance is. Jedward were mercifully kept off the number 1 spot by Owl City and everyone piled in to Abbey Road studios to try and raise some money for Haiti. So far, so good.

2010 has also seen the aftermath of Leona Lewis "crucial second album" campaign. This week, Leona's second single, "I Got You" from said second album campaign got its full release and reached the dizzying heights of...

Number 14

WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

On the face of it, this should have been staring the top ten in the face, at least. I mean, in a week where the "Sugababes" release a load of utter tosh (MASSIVE shoe in the video aside) and manage to eke a number 7 out of it, it's hard to believe that a decent Leona-by-the-numbers release isn't even going to trouble the top 10.

But that, right there, is the problem. To be honest, I could quite happily listen to Leona warble out the menu from the local Chinese takeaway (if and only if accompanied with a video centred upon Leona looking into the middle distance nursing a bowl of wanton soup) but, in this fickle and fragmented post-Spotify, post-iTunes world that we live in, another mid-tempo ballad chucked out in the early springtime with vague ambitious of catching that all important Mother's Day/Valentine's day market sadly won't cut it.

Let me reiterate. "I Got You" is NOT a bad song. Hell, the aforementioned "Sugababes" could probably have warbled it out and been pretty much assured a similar or even better chart position. But, if we believe the rhetoric (and we probably bloody well should) Leona is a cut above that. She is "The Voice". And whilst "I Got You" is a very good song (seriously, compare it to "Better In Time" and you'll begin to see my point with this), it's frankly just not up to the standard that's needed to justify the hype of Leona as being this globally important vocalist. The video, if we're being honest about the whole thing, is pretty much just "Bleeding Love" with a few location shots. The song, as the BBC's Chart Blog have perceptively noted, has some very underwhelming "Echoes" (see what we did there?) of something Snow Patrol would bang out and hope to get picked up on by Gray's Anatomy. It's frankly just not up to scratch. All releasing "I've Got You" has done for Leona and SyCo is to fail to provide a renewed vigour around the album campaign; it has landed them a mediocre chart position which they're going to have to airbrush out from the rest of the campaign (if they're even going to bother with another single).

But worst of all, it's fed into this pernicious but pervasive feeling that Leona is a one trick pony who can only be relied upon to give a decent X Factor performance to hype another safe and yet somehow divisive ballad into the Winter singles market.

This, readers, is a ridiculous state of affairs. For a start Echo is, if we're being honest, a far better and more interesting album than Spirit was. It truly showcases Leona's potential as a modern pop vocalist and not just "the new Whitney Houston" (which, lest we forget, is a pretty bloody impressive recommendation in its own right). Crucially, it gave Leona and SyCo a much more diverse choice in follow-up single to showcase the album.

Really, readers, the question comes down to this. Faced with a somewhat lukewarm public/sales reaction to this second album campaign and the regrettable fact of the album's lead single losing the number one race to what can only be described as a "fairly crap" offering from the Black Eyed Peas (who, at this time, were really at the very arse end of their album campaign) WHY did SyCo not decide to have a punt, aim to subvert some opinions, and give this a whirl (spotify link)?

It really begs belief, doesn't it?

Doesn't it?