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If, five years ago, you had said that the members of Girls Aloud were all to take a break to pursue individual projects, you probably would have fallen off your chair if anyone had suggested that Cheryl Cole's solo debut would have been more hotly anticipated than Nadine Coyle's. I mean, let's look at the facts here: Nadine is, and always has been, the powerhouse vocalist of the group. Cheryl, on the other hand, has been known to produce vocals like this:
But, as we roll ever onwards towards the end of 2010, Cheryl's Three Words campaign has solidified her as a bona fide headliner, whereas Nadine's solo album and first single appears to have had a journey analogous to the exodus in order to see the light of day. Now, however, the first single from the album has finally been unveiled and the (probably extremely tedious) Cheryl vs Nadine chart war can finally get underway. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Insatiable
I think it's firstly extremely important to note that Nadine has wisely chosen not to stray too far from her pop roots. As MuuMuse has judiciously pointed out, Nadine hasn't got an urban bone in her body, and so it's very wise for her to be producing something wholly and unashamedly "pop" for this first single.
For some reason the first few seconds of the song reminds me of Echo by Girls Can't Catch. Anyway, that's probably not important.
No, the key thing here is that Nadine has made sure that the production has gone completely balls-out on making this sound like heavyweight stuff. The big and brassy backing track with the relentless production trickery could, in the hands of less-experienced vocalists, completely overshadow the song. Thankfully, Nadine produces a competent vocal which means that never comes to pass, and the focus is fittingly upon Nadine, the solo artist, and not on Nadine, the person who selects an overly aggressive backing track and can't keep up. In its own right, Insatiable is a great solo debut for Nadine. It's sufficiently distinct from her Girls Aloud oeuvre to avoid the "playing it safe" criticism, whilst, equally, she hasn't felt the need to reinvent the wheel and be seen as anything other than an amazing pop singer.
However, as sad as it is, comparisons are inevitably going to be drawn with Cheryl's solo debut (and, indeed, her forthcoming single Promise This). And this is where the Nadine solo campaign may well run into problems. Yes, Insatiable is a very good start. It's by no means a modern pop masterpiece, but it's a very competent effort and sets out the album's stall quite nicely. The problem is, it just doesn't have the vitality or (and please shoot us for saying this) the X Factor that Fight For This Love did. Insatiable, as good as it is, isn't an immediate hit. Indeed, there's little about it which screams "number 1 hit" in the way that Cheryl's debut absolutely did. We're writing all of this in full awareness that it's unfair to levy a comparison at two artists who, aside from being in the same band as one another, are actually producing completely divergent material. But, as unfair as it is, it is inevitable, and if you're going to judge the "Cheryl and Nadine solo experiment" on the basis of a comparison of Insatiable and Fight For This Love then, frankly, it's not even a competition.
It's extremely harsh. Insatiable, as we've said throughout, is a great pop song. Hopefully, it's a taster for even bigger and better singles to come from the album campaign. But one thing's for certain, it's not a song which is going to supplant the judgement that Cheryl Cole is the solo superstar of Girls Aloud.
