Post by The Curmudgeon on Dec 13, 2007 21:45:28 GMT 2
Come in Westlife, your time is up.
The ninth studio album by any band is quite a feat - the ninth from a manufactured boy band, who by this time should surely be halfway through failed solo attempts, reality television projects and rehab visits by now, is something else. It's really quite a staggering fact that Westlife are still going very strongly indeed. It's even more staggering when you sit back and realise how deeply awful they are.
Now, believe it or not, nine long years ago I didn't mind Westlife at all. OK, they were never going to be in my top bands (or in my CD collection either, to be honest) but their first crop of hit singles were effective, enjoyable pop affairs that, while not exactly breaking the mould, certainly didn't spoil it either.
But that was then, and any enjoyment there was to be had from hearing a Westlife song on the radio is long, long gone. Evaporated, not through time or lost members (so that would be just ONE failed solo career then), but through a dismal, depressing track record of cynical, boring and safe releases, with cover after cover sapping any life or energy out of the band. It's hard to imagine any Westlife fan REALLY enjoying this new music.. hell, it's hard to imagine Westlife themselves enjoying recording it. You can almost hear the lyric sheets being turned over, as four bored, rich guys sing other people's songs while watching their bank balances increase.
Westlife have appeared in The Curmudgeon's Amazon Room 101 before, with that atrocious, insulting "jazz" album, and if I could stomach it I would certainly have inducted their last album, a collection of cover versions with a "love" theme (called, amazingly, "The Love Album"), but even I have my limits to what I can endure. And now, like death and taxes, they are inevitably back with another album stealing big overseas hits that failed to make a mark over here.
So we have Michael Buble's "Home" and Lonestar's "I'm Already There", alongside a few others that are as dull and uninspired as anything else they've done in about seven years. It's music without passion, heart or feeling, with about as much depth as a McDonalds' menu.
But of course, it still sold by the bucketload, as the empty-headed teenage single mothers and One Album A Year buying housewives failed to see the moribund state this band really is in, which will only mean another record of wretched, sales obsessed dross next Christmas.
Pop music is fun, exciting and different. This band, and the joyless slop they churn out for the brainless masses - is anything but.
See Westlife: Home
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkNK5HuTacI
