Cinderella, are you happy?

Nicola Roberts, whom I called "the coolest popstar on Earth" a year ago, turned 30 today. She's still cool, but I'm not entirely sure she still qualifies as a popstar.



Not that she's changed completely (I have no idea though, I've never met her), but the band she was in has split up, and according to a recent article, she has no plans to record and release new material on her own. She's hardly too old to be on stage (just look at fellow gorgeous redhead Shirley Manson, who's been in bands since Nicola was born, getting ready to go on tour), her passion for music is very much still there - songwriting being her main occupation at the moment -, so what's happened?

She did have a go at being a solo artist, releasing the excellent "Cinderella's Eyes" album in 2011, but it didn't really get the reception she may have hoped for. Most critics loved it, plus some music nerds like myself, and it wasn't a disaster commercially - it sold and charted slightly better than all but one of her (now ex-)bandmates' solo efforts -, but it failed to make a significant impact. I'm not entirely sure why, but my guess would be that her songs weren't bland enough for the mainstream media, she's a bit too individual and unusual for the masses, but too pop - especially coming from a band formed on a reality TV show - for the indie kids.

The current climate of the music industry doesn't help either. Major record companies never really had an idea what's going to sell - they only know what sold well before, and try to follow that -, and without their backing it's unlikely for an artist to get enough radio airplay to succeed, but they won't even look at you if you don't seem to appeal to the widest possible audience. And in a time when 2 #1 singles, a place in a (fading, but still popular) major Saturday night TV show and a "nation's sweetheart" status isn't enough for Cheryl Fernandez-Versini to sell an album (or not to bomb with a 3rd single), and when Sarah Harding's debut single doesn't really set the charts alight to say the least, no label is going to think that Nicola could be the next big thing.

There is life outside the majors, and it's still not completely impossible to play interesting music and find noticable success with it - hello, CHVRCHES! -, but it's becoming more and more rare. Also, when you've already worked in the business for 13 years and reached a status where your records chart high and sell well, you play in the biggest arenas on multiple nights, it's not that easy to start again at the very beginning.

I'm not too worried though, she'll figure something out, and I'm sure it won't be long until she'll start to miss singing to an audience, and if the only way to do that would be to resurrect Girls Aloud, so be it.

Until then, once again, happy birthday, Ms Roberts!