Article Research

For my double page spread I will be writing an article on Cheryl Cole. Here I have done some research on Cheryl Cole's life because I will be writing a biographical article on her with interviews with fans.

Born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, Cheryl Cole grew up performing as a dancer in recitals and on TV. She also appeared in a few television commercials including one with her younger brother Garry. In addition to Garry, Cheryl has another two brothers, Andrew and Joseph and a sister, Gillian.

At the age of 16 Cheryl auditioned on Tyne Tees Television “Gimme 5” where she was looking for sponsors to get into the Royal Ballet School. Cheryl beat over 9,000 others to secure a place at the school.

Cheryl was working as a waitress when she decided to audition for ITV’s Popstars: The Rivals and at her first audition, Cheryl sang S Club 7’s Have You Ever. She got the thumbs up from all three Judges to go through to the next round of auditions to be held in London. On the 30th November in 2002, Cheryl was announced as a winner alongside Nadine Coyle, Sarah Harding, Nicola Roberts and Kimberley Walsh and Girls Aloud was born.

Girls Aloud hold the record for the shortest time between formation and reaching number one in the
UK Charts with their platinum-selling début single Sound of the Underground. Guinness World Records
lists them as “Most Successful Reality TV Group” in the 2007 edition, and the group also hold the record for “Most Consecutive Top Ten Entries in the UK by a Female Group” in the 2008 edition, with 15 consecutive top tens from Sound of the Underground in 2002 through to Walk This Way in 2007. Girls Aloud have since extended this record to 18 consecutive Top 10s from debut – the most recent being Can’t Speak French which reached number 9 in March 2008.

During the ITV2 Passions of Girls Aloud series, Cheryl auditioned as a street dancer to gain a part in the
music video for will.i.am’s single Heartbreaker. She won the part and was later asked to sing vocals on
the track. The song was released in the UK on 5 May 2008, but had already entered the top ten on download sales and peaked at number 4 in the UK Singles Chart.

Cheryl married footballer Ashley Cole in July 2006. It was reported that Ashley had slept with some hairdresser or something. Back in 2003, Cheryl was convicted of assaulting a cloakroom attendant.
Cheryl has been working pretty much non-stop for the last couple of years after winning another series of The X Factor - this time with Joe McElderry - She had a Number 1 single with Fight For This Love, have her own TV special on ITV1 and appeared at the Royal Albert Hall to sing alongside Snow Patrol.
In May 2010, Cole filed for divorce at London's High Court citing "unreasonable behaviour" of estranged husband Ashley as the reason for their break-up. In July 2010, Cole was admitted to hospital with suspected acute malaria. This was shortly after a visit to Tanzania, where it is believed she may have contracted the disease. Cheryl was forced to pull out of the X Factor auditioning process, but will return for the live shows.

It took the instant approval of the hottest pop producer in the world right now, Black Eyed Peas hitmaker Will.I.Am, to get the Cheryl Cole solo locomotion steaming. ‘This is how it all began,’ says Cheryl, in classic fairytale mode, of her solo journey. ‘Last year we made The Passions of Girls Aloud. I decided I wanted to have a go at street-dance.  The reward at the end of the show was a guest appearance in a Will.I.Am video, for his single Heartbreaker. We became friends and he said he was interested in working with me again. It was a massive compliment but I didn’t even register it, really. I was working hard with the Girls. They were my complete focus.’


But after the Out of Control Tour came X Factor and then Record company folk began asking if she was interested in Will.I.Am’s offer and so she decided to take some time out to work with him in the studio. ‘The way we work with Girls Aloud is that we’ll go into the vocal booth and do our lines on a track that’s already almost completed. With Will I was seeing music being made right from the ground up. He’d ask my opinion on the beats and the words. He’d send me off to write hooks.’


The recording process gathered momentum after Will and Cheryl had alighted on the gob-stopping robo-pop R&B duet 3 Words that will form the centrepiece of Cheryl Cole, solo. ‘I still can’t quite believe that that song is mine,’ says Cheryl now, justifiably chuffed with the results; a lean sound that straddles an imaginary dancefloor somewhere between Ibiza and South Beach, Miami and welds it to a lyric that sounds as if it were crafted from the finer end of a Geordie text message.'


She says, ‘Right from the start with this I knew what I wouldn’t sing. If I heard a thumping dance beat or a phrase I wouldn’t use, it’d go. If I was going to make a solo record it had to be a record that I’d play in the house. I love what the Girls do. I love the quirkiness and I love that it is our sound. But this time it had to be personal.’

LINKS
http://www.talktalk.co.uk/celebrity/biography/person/cheryl-cole/35
http://www.unrealitytv.co.uk/x-factor/cheryl-cole-biography/
http://www.cherylcole.com/biography/

I am going to write biographical article about Cheryl Cole for my double page spread. It will contain inteviews with fans of Cheryl Cole. The questions I will be asking are.

Why do you like Cheryl Cole?

Do you think that Cheryl's choice to go solo was a good decision?

What do you think about Cheryl's new album Messy Little Raindrops?

How does Cheryl Cole inspire you?

What do you expect from Cheryl Cole in the future?