mixtape maestro (2.0)

As pop songs go, “Fight For This Love”, the debut solo single from Girls Aloud member/ X-Factor judge Cheryl Cole is definitely an earworm, matching sturdy lessons in love (summary: romantic relationships aren’t meant to be a walk in the park, they constantly require work on both partner’s parts) with a nicely subdued lite R&B-dance production buzz that’s further heightened by string melody snippets ripped straight from K Ci & JoJo’s wedding staple “All My Life” and a percussion thump focused breakdown.

But with as many replay spins we’ve given it since first hearing it a while back, there’s always been something that annoyed us about it that we couldn’t quite put our finger on. After recently coming across the long-ago leaked demo version, performed by co-songwriter Andre Merritt (Rihanna’s “Disturbia”, Chris Brown’s “Forever”), we quickly figured out what the source of our irritation was: Cheryl Cole herself.

Cole’s a decent vocalist, but her overall contribution feels almost too anonymous, especially the icy-cold tone she brings to the verses (only Rihanna really succeeds at sounding like a dead-eyed zombie these days). Merritt’s suave tenor, on the other hand, brings a certain level of warmth to “Fight” that makes it flow so much more better, from the falsetto-lined chorus to the little R&B trills he comfortably sneaks into the verses.

What do y’all think? Peep Cheryl’s official “Fight” video here then check out a slightly humorous meshing of the same video with Merritt’s vocal (dubbed “The Perfect Love”) here and tell us which one you dig more?

DL: “Fight For This Love (Demo)” (alt)