Now, I’ve never really known her. I know her fashion sense is bizarre, her singing style is a collection of “ohh” and rapping and she has various tattoos for whatever reason. The other day, her video and song was officially released after days of anger from the young lady after her single was leaked, I didn’t pay attention to it since I really couldn’t give a rat’s arse over her. I was then interested in the video and single because of the reaction. “It’s a good song….if you turn the sound off” “OMG IT’S WORSE THAN REBECCA BLACK’S FRIDAY” “Sounds like a cat on helium singing with autotune lol”. That was the gist of it. So I watched and listened to it.
Cher Lloyd with her fans
Now before I say anything else, I am not a music reviewer. I’ve never really reviewed music and this is just an experiment. Here goes.
The premise of the song is a massive F you to all of her critics (or “haters” if you want to get modern) and sings it while wearing odd clothes. A quick Google search on “Swagger Jagger” would tell you that it means “a person who always cramp your style” so i.e me for example. But you really don’t need to search the song title for the meaning because the song’s topic is so easy to understand, even her fans would get it.
The only positive thing of this video is probably the SE
The song seems quite unstructured and messy, like a sandwich without the bread or butter, just the filling and it’s its own downfall. Cher has written a song that she doesn’t even know what she wants it to be; the verses is her angrily rapping down a street with bright cartoon visuals spawning from nowhere like an acid trip, the gaps in between the verses and chorus is something from an average club anthem remix, then a slow tempo chorus which Cher Lloyd exercises her vocals and actually properly singing while flirting with the camera (not sure if want) and bopping up and down with her idiotic chums. It’s a complete car crash of a song.
See, songs to me should always follow a structure of slow verse, building up to the epic chorus. It’s a formula that I believe that works and I don’t know why this song tries to do that in reverse. I feel most of the “energy” focused on the silly “lol I’m rappin’ verses and then the bridge to the slow chorus and it really doesn’t work. It was a bizarre move and signs she's just going for multiple genres, sort of like if the Now! albums were instead songs than albums.
With all these shots of Cher walking down the street, it felt like I was being yelled abuse from a chav
The real thing that did annoy me about the song was the topic. Cher Lloyd here is kicking of an hopefully unsuccessful music career with a song telling critics to bugger off and let her do her thing. Fair enough, responding to haters, what's wrong with that? Main problem - shows she cares too much about negative comments. Takes things too hard. Okay, critics do have a point with her utter poor musical style, but as a human being (lol) she shouldn't care what others think, but rather do her own thing even if it's another possible form of torture.
I guess the sad thing about this is that it's on its way to Number One. Poor how a song that's trying to be three different genres that really doesn't work will get to top of the charts despite the hatred of the song and the artist. Probably I'm exaggerating. Who knows, maybe another song will spring out of nowhere, be on top spot and make an 18 year old cry. An Amy Winehouse song is likely since she's raised in popularity ever since she died.
