Flop, me?

Natasha Bedingfield made a fairly massive name for herself with a series of inspirational, self-help midtempos. Her crowning glory and arguably biggest hit, "Unwritten", is a towering, uplifting slice of sub-Ray of Light - all twanging sitar-like riffs and never-ending choruses. It's sickly sweet, but carved out a niche for Natasha in an era when kitchen-sink indie and guns-and-girls hip hop were in vogue.

Flash forward to 2010 and Natasha's sugar-spun, saccharine throne has been usurped. In the past few months we've had P!nk's ode to self-congratulation "Raise a Glass", Ke$ha's almost-identically-themed ode to self-assertion (filtered through a pretense of being constantly wankered) "We R Who We R", Katy Perry's ode to self-love, "Firework", replete with lyrics so patronising and gooey, even Ms Bedingfield might baulk at them, and in a few months we'll have Lady GaGa's single and album, "Born This Way", supposedly an ode to self-identification. Can you spot a pattern (as Björk has sung)?

There's now no need for Natasha: the world has moved on, big gay diva female popstars are now ten-a-penny, and singing songs about loving yourself despite the hardships one encounters in this, like, totally traumatic first world life we all live, lolz, is not solely the preserve of the most successful Bedingfield.

Unfortunately, instead of using her apparently considerable songwriting talents to move slightly left of centre, eke out a space for herself a little bit more experimental, or try something more bleak and arresting, Natasha is ploughing ahead, and it ain't been going very well.