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Maybe slightly unfairly, following on the heels of Cheryl Cole's Messy Little Raindrops review, fellow Girls Aloud group-mate Nadine Coyle is about to get the same treatment.
Nadine's first foray into the solo realm, Insatiable, hit shelves on 8th November 2010 exclusively through the supermarket chain Tesco, released through her own label Black Pen Records.
Unfortunately the album artwork initiated my main thoughts on the presentation of the album and it is one which reeks through the delivery of it too, self indulgence. With those words ringing, it's on with the music...

1. Runnin' - This opening tracks starts things off sounding like a bit of a Girls Aloud "B-side" track. Luckily it becomes a bit stronger and comes into itself by the time the chorus hits. Of course, Nadine sounds great, she always does. Her vocals sound tamper tree and natural, which is nice to hear. The production in this track is also great, and I love the synths that open the track and continue throughout. A good start. 7.5/10

2. Put Your Hands Up - The track starts off well, as another up-tempo tune and things get better for the chorus. There is just the right amount of production found here and also a little vocal production as well, but it is not over done and used well. It's a bit of a feel good track, and Nadine sounds like she had a good time recording it. It falls a bit flat on the middle-eight which purely consists of "Ahhhh's" but then kicks back into the hard beat and great chorus repeats for the end of the track, complete with Nadine ad-libbing all over 'em but not over-doing it. 8.5/10


3. Chained - From the start of this track you get the feel of how it is going to pan out. A pleasant beat and instrumental twangs, but a bit dated and a bit boring. Nadine sounds good, for most of the part, but starts with the vocal acrobatics which is a bit unnecessary on a track like this. The whole thing sounds a bit ploddy, the verses are messy and the chorus gets a bit repetitive by the end of the song, and isn't made any better being covered up with ad-libs at the end. 5/10

4. Insatiable - The title track, and first single from the album. This is a standout from the whole album and probably it's main highlight. The track hits hard, Nadine sounds powerful, and the beat plus brass make it a very strong track. The digital production thrown in adds to the mix and keeps it up to date pop and not too "jazzy" sounding. It takes a pinch of rock too, with the electric guitar building up towards the end. Just try not to watch the video as it taints your perception of the track a little, as those words "self indulgent" crop up again. 10/10

5. Red Light - Following a similar pattern from the previous track, Red Light hits hard again with its strong beat, synths, brass and vocals. The verses are strong but the chorus is a bit dragged out, luckily it's not repeated too much. The middle-eight sounds very reminiscent of previous Girls Aloud material though, and you're just waiting for the other's to chime in with their vocal input. The track fades out to that electric guitar again, which saves us from that loooong chorus. 8/10


6. Sexy Love Affair - A sexy love affair is definitely what is not going to occur with this track. Nadine seems to have felt some desire to half whisper / rasp out her vocals on this song, and it doesn't sound experimental or edgy, it just sounds, wait for it...self indulgent. The lyrics are awful and are half down to Nadine as she co-wrote this (and all of the album actually) so maybe when she made the bad decision to rasp out this track, she also felt the desire to write a bad song? She succeeded. This track could have worked as a short 30 second interlude, but no, not like this. 2/10

7. Lullaby - This one opens purely with Nadine's vocals, now that she's cleared her throat and stopped with the raspy silliness. It then builds up with a military sounding snare beat and then blooms into a decent sounding melody and backing track. The lyrics are much better here if maybe a little cliche and typical of your "my man is gone, I'm missing him, he will return, I still love him" theme. The track doesn't stand out as amazing but is certainly not awful either. It is forgettable, but nice while it lasts. 6/10

8. You Are The One - Again this track opens purely with Nadine's vocals. Unfortunately they sound, again, self indulgent and like she's trying so hard to sound amazing. I wish she'd realise she sounds better when she doesn't try so hard. The track doesn't really pick up, being a ballad, but to the point where it just becomes boring. A bit of a guitar strum and bashing of a drum, the usual ballad stuff here, just with Nadine straining over the top. Skippable. 2/10

9. Natural - Another ballad here, same stuff as before with nothing to note. No, I lie, a piano is the focal instrument as opposed to the guitar strums from the previous track. Nadine sounds good and doesn't try to impress us, which is all that makes it an improvement from You Are The One. Listen to half of it, get the first chorus out of the way, and then skip as you're not missing anything. 3/10


 11. Rumours - Ooooh another ballad. I don't have anything against ballads, really, just split them up a bit. And make good ones too... Oops! On sample this time we have Nadine's voice, Nadine's voice, a drum, a piano, Nadine's voice, a violin and Nadine's voice. The last minute of the track is the best part though and the ballad starts to work perfectly, just a little too late. 4/10

12. Unbroken - Hello raspy vocals again! This time mixed with her normal vocals, maybe trying to create the illusion of two people singing? Or even amazing vocal talents? No, it just sounds messy, but I get what Nadine was going for here which was the illusion of amazing vocal talents sounding like two different people. This track is your typical "dinner party" track, and will sound fine if played at a low volume over dinner discussions and small talk. If you're just listening to the album in any other situation too, this goes down like a lead balloon. This falls in the up-beat Ballad category, but the up-beat soon turns to crazy keyboard jazz towards the end and ruins the entire track, or what was left to ruin any way. Off, now. 1/10

13. Make A Man Out Of You Yet - The closing track here, and this one was purely written by Coyle alone. The track opens with a piano melody and strings, and then in comes Nadine to sing her carefully written words. Then in comes the guitar for the awful chorus accompaniment. Once that's out of the way the track adopts the typical ballad beat, plod, plod, plod. Unfortunately Nadine just comes off as self indulgent again, and very snobby doing so, implying she is the woman to make a man our of men. No, Nadine, no. Stop, eject. Done. 1/10

Overall rating: 5/10
This was never going to work out well really, was it? The accepted vocal power house of Girls Aloud, making a solo album, could only end one way and it is the way that opened the review, self indulgent. The album starts of well, with good and very good points, then just flops for the remaining two thirds of the experience. It just scraped a five out of ten though, as it has produced one very good single and Nadine has clearly put work into it, writing or co-writing all of the tracks and releasing it off her own back, so credit to her for that. Maybe it could have told her something though, when bigger record labels didn't want to release it? If you do a follow-up Nadine, less of the self indulgent vocals, no self indulgent video to your launch single, and a less self indulgent photo shoot for the artwork.
In fact, to close, how about just getting back in the studio with Girls Aloud where your talents, which are clearly there, are better utilised and you come over a more likable pop star.