Pixie Lott - All About Tonight

Pixie Lott, what are we going to do with you, eh? I have to admit, I was hoping for a lott (Ha, ha...) from Pixie's new single; the first from her second album.

Her first record had been jam-packed with a veritable feast of pop treats - radio friendly, cute, and possessed with a sense that this was specifically Pixie's music.

Like the best in teen pop, it's not just about the music, but the whole package - that 'X Factor' Mr. Cowell is always banging on about. And never was this more true than with Pixie Lott - her songs were the very essence of 'her', the breathtakingly pretty girl about town that girls wanted to be and guys wanted to be with.

Records like the sublime Boys And Girls got that balance spot on - but new track All About Tonight goes too far, tumbling away off a cliff of generic-ness.

Taken with its video in too, the whole thing feels overtly glossy - a more global, commercialised Pixie, processed into a tight package of tinny-sounding synths. With massively-blatant Nokia product placements flying in one direction and a dance routine clearly designed to show as much bared-thigh as possible going in the other, there's just too much going on.

For a song that's supposed to be all about the thrills and pleasures of partying it up at night, the track feels remarkably studied. Every part of it seems to have been precisely calibrated to push all the right buttons; but with those component parts pushed together into the finished article, it just doesn't work. Something crucial is missing - the soul.

Radio and TV will doubtless lap All About Tonight up, but for me, everything that made Pixie's debut so great - the fun-loving liveliness and real heart - is gone. And for a girl who 99% of the time can look so effortlessly smoking hot, she doesn't half look like she's just going through the motions here too.

Pixie, we love you - but let's have some real 10/10 stormers on the new album too please?

All About Tonight is released on the 5th September.