Cher Lloyd unveils tawdry video to kitsch debut single, invents new words

X-factor star, Cheryl Cole’s protege and Malvern, Worcestershire’s finest export Cher Lloyd has released the video to her first single since getting booted off the reality TV show. ‘Swagger Jagger’ is taken from her yet-unnamed forthcoming debut album, which from the artwork looks like a typographer’s idea of calligraphic hell.

Things seemed quite promising for Lloyd six months ago, responding to the “haters” on the back of her exit by linking with Gaga producer RedOne, working alongside Bronx-based songwriter Autumn Rowe and amidst talks of a possible collaboration with Lil Wayne. Her first audition showed unearthed flair that could have seen her, with the correct guidance, blossom into quite a credible, or at least guilty pleasure-worthy, RnB singer. But the reality show, and Cole in particular, increasingly tried to present her as a human porcelain doll, marketing her as a rapping Avril Lavigne.

Since the programme, signing to the Simon Cowell-run Syco Music has evidently sucked dry any credibility that Lloyd may have had. The label can be seen more adequately as a recycling conveyor belt of music than a record company, one which assembles and constructs acts from the dregs of society, forces it into the mouths of the populous and waits for us to spit it back out again.

The excruciatingly-kitsche video opens with a girl walking down a street that’s made to look more like Queens or Brooklyn than the roads of Bromsgrove and Redditch that Lloyd has more frequently traveled. The girl is framed as the epitome of modern day urban youth, or at least what banking adverts seem to picture the youngsters of today when they flog £10 MP3 players to students.

But no, this is not just any girl, this is actually Cher Lloyd herself- quelle surprise! She is seen wearing a terrible faux-leather jacket that looks like it should be sporting the name of some motorbike manufacturer, hi-top shoes that clashes spots with stripes and highlighter-yellow with lego-red and carrying a boom-box that only appears to have a cassette player built within, raising the question of where her yet-to-be-released MP3 is actually playing from.

She continues to dance about for approximately 3 and a half minutes in which time she manages an impressive three or four outfit changes. There’s the buttoned-up and buttoned-down flannel shirt and American Apparel letter tee combo to continue Lloyd’s role as a random identity generator. Then there’s a raunchy black lace number, which provocatively displays a zip going right down the middle. You know, for all of us with a zip fetish, which I think I can safely say is none of us.

The video aside, what is a ‘swagger jagger’ anyway? People can’t just go around saying words and pretending they have meaning, that is how the end of human linguistics will happen. Other lyrical highlights include “You can’t stop tweetin’ about me”, or the second verse’s alternative line “You can’t stop YouTubing me”.

I’m not sure “YouTubing” can actually be used as verb, but you’re right about one thing, Cher. When things are excruciatingly bad, it’s really hard to stop watching. But this is not Nicola Roberts-funny, this is car-crash funny. Which isn’t very funny at all.

So there we have it, Cowell has ruined another one. The last person leaving the world of music, please turn the light off on the way out.