Leona Lewis: 'Bleeding Love'

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The standard X Factor trick has been to strike while the filament's hot: before the TV millions forget who won your super-sized talent contest, whisk your champ into the recording studio, get him/her to trill a few karaoke night staples, a handful of sappy ballads and a smattering of I-made-it-through-against-the-odds anthems, then pop the album out in time for Mother's Day. Kerching! But, with last year's victor Leona Lewis, the north London girl who combined a proper pop diva voice with the constant look of a baby gerbil being dangled over a toaster, Simon Cowell & co have done things differently. Lewis has been holed up in LA for the last nine months, catering to the whims of more A-list music producers than the tea-boy at Abbey Road.

But has the investment paid off? Is Leona's second tune worth the wait? The answer's a resounding "Hell yeah!", because 'Bleeding Love' is easily the best single to be released by an X Factor star. Steered by Ryan Tedder, the beatsmith who recently helped J.Lo to 'Do It Well', it's a brilliantly smart pop record, managing to offer the lovelorn balladry that Lewis' X Factor fans are no doubt craving, while also suggesting a hint of street cred in the form of some beefy, vaguely modish beats. Lewis, to her credit, attacks the slightly unhinged lyrics with relish: her heart's crippled by the vein that she keeps on clo-o-osing, apparently. Whitney, Mariah, Celine... Leona? Suddenly those uber-diva comparisons don't seem quite so ridiculous.