The publisher blames the Internet, but the Guardian’s Alexis Petridis unmasks the real villain:

in the past decade, rounded, interesting, flawed human beings have vanished entirely from teen pop. Record companies, cleaving to the American model of perfection, began media-training their stars – “media-training” being a technical term for surgically depriving someone of their personality. Pop music in 2006 is no better or worse than it was 25 years ago – the tracks on Girls Aloud’s recent Chemistry album are every bit as thrilling as Adam And The Ants’ Stand and Deliver – but the people who make it have been focus-grouped out of existence. They are witless automatons, smiley conduits for the groundbreaking work of pop production teams.