Album Review: JLS – “JLS”

So, I finally get chance to write the album review that I have been really looking forward to writing!

JLS have released ‘JLS’ on the same week that Robbie has released ‘Reality Killed The Video Star‘, so the battle for supremacy in the charts this weekend will be one of the most interesting of the year I reckon.

We all know JLS, we all love JLS, and we all want to sleep with at least one of JLS, right?!

So, in lieu of this, rather than give you the spiel about JLS and their story, here’s my thoughts on the album

I tend to just make notes whilst I listen:

Beat Again: MOBO ‘Best Song’ of the year… what more is there to say?! Excellent debut single!

Everybody In Love: not a huge fan of this, but it’s really grown on me the more I’ve heard it. A little too soppy for me.

Keep You: Funky, great song! I was chair dancing along to the beat – I really hope this one is a single!

Crazy For You: 90s-style ballad, nice sound to it, but does sound a little dated as it harks back to the boy band of yester-year. This is to be the third single, and will (again!) go head to head with Robbie (‘You Know Me‘). Unfortunately, I think this song will lose that battle.

Heal This Heartbreak: love the style of this and the pulsating baseline – would be great in a nightclub, and I’d imagine it’d have a very cool music video to accompany it.

Close To You: A JLS style ballad instead of a dated one… much better! Really nice stripped back sound, with some gorgeous vocals.

Only Tonight: Opening bars sound a little like the start of Don Henley’s “Boys Of Summer“, but it quickly turns into a song with a great beat, chilled sound and some great harmonies.

One Shot: Excellent club track – potential single I reckon. Contemporary, upbeat and pleasant on the ear.

Private: Another funky baseline, I can imagine this one as a single too (I’d choose this over One Shot) – I was dancing around my living room, and I’ve just had a long hard day at work… so that’s something! Second favourite track on the album.

Don’t Go: Edgy sounding song, starting to sound like the last two tracks a little, but I love the little ‘woo-ohh’s’.

Only Making Love: Strange sounding track, dislike the beat, it jars with the song I feel. By the chorus, I was kinda into it and bouncing along, but I think that was just because the beat started getting repetitive.

Kickstart: I like this one – similar sounding to many of the other tracks, but there’s something that I like about it that I can’t quite put my hand on it… I think it’s the chorus! Either way, it had me dancing along.

Tightrope: A bit of sing-by-numbers ballad. Album track, but not necessarily a bad one. Clumsy transpose towards the end spoils it a little.

All in all, I think that this is a good album!

I much prefer an edgy contemporary JLS sound/performance than the 90s ballad sound that they sometimes come out with…. but in all fairness, when they do go into ballad mode, it’s nowhere near as bad as some of the absolute slush that’s gone before (911, A1 etc!).

Perhaps predictably, they have been criticised (ok, ok, slammed) quite a lot by the media for this debut album, and I can understand why, though I do think that they are getting more flack than they should – it’s certainly not hideous! They wrote nine of the thirteen songs on the album, and in my opinion, it’s their second album which is going to be the more exciting, as they’ll be able to mature into their new roles and get a feel for what they want to do, and do it in their own time.

I was a huge fan of these lads in X-Factor and recognised their potential very early on. I am very glad that they’re currently getting all the success that they have earnt, and sincerely hope that it continues for them.

I purchased the HMV edition which came with the exclusive slip case (naturally, I chose Aston) – I  like the album artwork, though I was very disappointed that they didn’t include any torso shots! Boo!

… and you wouldn’t want to see Aston topless now…. would you?

Robbie Williams – Reality Killed The Video Star

I am very excited today as Robbie Williams‘ new album, ‘Reality Killed The Video Star’, has been soft-released on the music platform Spotify.

The album has is being exclusively previewed in full by Spotify from today, Friday, onwards. This album will not be available elsewhere until Monday, when record sales actually begin.

For those people using Spotify, all levels of user are able to access the album, it’s not a premier user only release!

This has to be one of the most heavily promoted albums that I’ve seen in a long while. I already know which songs I really really adore (‘You Know Me’ is a career highlight I think) and the lyrics to most.

I get the feeling that this come-back album really is ‘for the people’ in a sense. Robbie’s appearance on the Electric Proms, and other media means that a lot of us have already heard most of the new material. Indeed, Robbie’s own website has been allowing people to listen to 3 tracks from the new album each day for free! (I had ‘You Know Me’ on an endless loop the other day).

I love that Robbie has gone back to an orchestrated sound. If asked to compare the sound to another album, I’d say ‘Intensive Care’ – which I thought was marvellous! It’s as if ‘RudeBox’ never even happened.

Now that the entire album has been made available, I thought I’d write this post, as it seemed unfair to judge it based on all of the preview performances etc.

Without doubt, my ‘most eagerly anticipated’ album of the year, and I’ve been waiting restlessly all week for today to come around!

As always, I had a listen to the album whilst at work, so I made a few thought notes against each track, which I have shared below.

NB – these are in order of how the ‘random’ function on Spotify played them, so are not in track listing order.

Bodies – we all know how this one goes by now… strange lyrics, but an awesome chorus when those strings kick in! A track that has definitely grown on me.

Difficult for Weirdos – perhaps how the RudeBox album should have sounded. Good club track, futuristic sounding and contemporary. Hurrah!

Somewhere – a bit of a ‘nothing’ track really, it’s only 1 minute 2 seconds long.

Morning Sun – I love the orchestra at the start of this track. A great vocal and a fabulous track. Hope this gets released as a single.

Superblind – some good orchestrations again here, good song though perhaps an album track? Love the delicate vocal that sometimes feeds through.

Morning Sun (Reprise) – I thought having a Reprise at the end of the album was a fantastic idea. It really tied the whole project together, and is a great way to close the album off.

Do You Mind – love the chunky guitar chords, which were slightly unexpected. Had me bopping in my seat and tap/clapping along!Bit of Robbie attitude in the vocal, a great bridge, though probably an album track.

You Know Me – I cannot rave about this song enough. Shoo-wop-do-booop!

Last Days Of Disco – I love this track!It’s like the genre of disco has been dragged right up the present-day. I really like the pulsating, high tension vocal.

Deceptacon – I was initially not a huge fan of this song… mainly as I was expecting a song about Transformers!! It’s grown on my a lot though and is now one of my favourites on the album.

Starstruck - My second favourite song from the album I think. The performance of this on the BBC Electric Proms was great – I loved the ’sway’ bit for the chorus!

Blasphemy – another great song; I really like the prominence of the piano.

Won’t Do That - a great brass introduction, a light vocal and a really nice song.

All in all, I really do like the album, which I think comes to life when you have Robbie on stage performing songs from it. It’s great to listen to, but I think that the album’s real potential is realised through Robbie’s delivery of the songs in his live performances, which to be fair, is usually the case! Ever the showman, I can’t wait for a tour!

The track order is as below:

#	Title		Length
1.	“Morning Sun”		4:05
2.	“Bodies”		4:01
3.	“You Know Me”		4:27
4.	“Blasphemy”		4:18
5.	“Do You Mind?”		4:06
6.	“Last Days of Disco”		4:50
7.	“Somewhere”		1:01
8.	“Deceptacon”		5:01
9.	“Starstruck”		5:21
10.	“Difficult for Weirdos”		4:29
11.	“Won’t Do That”		3:38
12.	“Superblind”		4:46
13.	“Morning Sun (Reprise)”		1:19

Oh, and I am LOVING the preview that they have released for his new video for ‘You Know Me’!

(NB – if you visit the above link after midday today, Friday 6th November, you should be able to see the video in FULL!)

Cheryl Cole – 3 Words (Album)

I make no bones about saying this, and it’s going to be unpopular with some readers I’m sure, but I really disliked the album (and it seems that most of the British newspaper reviews are with me on this).

Having  loved ‘Fight For This Love’ and absolutely played it to death, the rest of the album came as a huge disappointment if I am honest. I think that given where she is at the moment, and all the success she’s currently enjoying, I expected better than this album has ultimately delivered.

The main bugbear for me is that there are far too many collaborations with will.i.am. He’s the only artist that she’s collaborated with, and it seems that he is credited as being an artist on 37% of the album! (plus he worked a lot behind the scenes on some of her other tracks). Crikey!

Sorry, but in this case, the pupil really has surpassed the mentor!

As always, I had a listen to the album whilst at work, so I made a few thought notes against each track, which I have shared below.

NB – these are in order of how the ‘random’ function on Spotify played them, so are not in track listing order.

3 Words - Dull, boring… tries to be pulsatingly tense and threatening, but ultimately fails and becomes repetitive.

Rain On Me - A good track, not a big fan of all the vocal overlays or the continuation of the stripped back instrument sound at the swell of the chorus, but a potential single?

Heartbreaker - I already know from the singles chart that I dislike this track… sorry! On second listen, I still dislike!

Parachute – vocal sounds a little flat and lacking in attitude… nice melody to the song, but let down by the vocal.

Stand Up – how I was hoping that the album would sound! A good song for the clubs, had me dancing along to it in my chair!

Fight For This Love - amazing, amazing, amazing – I continue to love this song! I can pretty much forgive the rest of the album for the fact that this song is included on it. Probably second best single of 2009 after Alexandra’s ‘Bad Boys’!

Happy Hour - a little middle of the road, but refreshingly different to the rest of the album.

Don’t Talk About This Love - quite a nice little ballady type song. Won’t set the World alight, but still rather nice nevertheless.

Heaven – Tolerable but plods a long a little, the ‘you, you, you’ and the ‘witchoo’ grates quite a bit.

Make Me Cry - again, a little dull/repetitive.

Boy Like You - I do quite like this one, but again, it’s not amazing. Something to dance to in a club though.

Paloma Faith

OK, so it appears that I am a ‘little’ late to the Paloma Faith party, largely due to my being constantly diverted away from writing this blog by other posts, and a lack of time – boo.

I have to say that her recent single, ‘New York’ has not been off my music player since I first heard it – it’s been on constant repeat – I LOVE IT!

I first heard of Paloma Faith via a TV advert for her album, and within 5 seconds of hearing a few bars of ‘New York‘ followed by that delightful transpose with the gospel choir, I’d made up my mind that I had to look this lass up, and had made a note on my phone to do so first thing next morning.

However, about five minutes later, Greg and I flicked over to Friday Night With Jonathan Ross and to my delight, she was his music guest for the week!

I had no idea that the song ‘Stone Cold Sober’, released earlier in the summer, was hers, I just chalked it up to Duffy or someone similar… perhaps unfortunate (in a back-handed compliment kind of way), however Paloma Faith has only recently started getting some mainstream recognition over here in the UK.

Her album/singles originally charted around the #15 mark on entry and didn’t really fare much better – however in the slew of marking and promotion that has been done since, it seems this girl is (rightfully!) on her way to the top! Recently, Paloma’s album topped the iTunes album chart, so it seems that her music is finally getting through to what I would consider the expected demographic.

It seems strange though that the single was released back in September 2009, and they are only now getting her onto the major talk-shows and music shows (such as Later… with Jools Holland). Hopefully, many of the people in the industry and media who originally gave the two singles/album a lukewarm/somewhat jaded reception will revise those thoughts as support for the artist grows.

Stargazer is also a lovely theatrical/dreamy song I think, and is my second favourite song on the album:

I adore her ‘background story’ too – apparently she’s half Spanish, half British (she was born in Hackney, London) and amongst her many prior jobs, she was a magician’s assistant! Her name, Paloma, translates as ‘Dove’ in Spanish.

Her debut album, ‘Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful?‘, is currently in the album charts, and is also available to listen to on Spotify for those wanting to give it a whirl! Paloma is also on the social media network, twitter.

Oh… and this latest entry from her video diary on YouTube is charmingly funny! This is the sort of thing that you’d find me doing most days heh! Maybe my next vLog post will take this format!

For those of us in the UK, Paloma is playing several gigs, including KOKO  (London), in November… tickets are onsale now!

JLS – debut album (‘JLS’)

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FOR MY REVIEW OF THE ALBUM; PLEASE CLICK HERE.

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I pre-ordered the debut JLS album at the weekend – very excited about it and can’t wait to receive it in November.

Did it via HMV as they’re giving away ‘an exclusive’ slipcase – so you can choose which of the guys you get! (I went with Aston, of course!!).

(oh… and I couldn’t ever end a post about JLS without including a hawt picture of Aston that I found online, could I?! )

Whitney Houston – I Look To You

I had a listen to this album today, and I have to say that I was distinctly underwhelmed I’m afraid.

I found it rather middle of the road and, as a comeback album, it didn’t wow me as I desperately wanted it to. Definitely something I could easily listen to, however it’s perhaps something for the die-hard fans to appreciate rather than the fans, like me, who like to dabble in ‘mainstream’ Whitney. I can’t remember any of the songs if I’m honest.

I heard the album version of ‘Million Dollar Bill’ and didn’t really like it. I thought that he remix version that she performed on the X-Factor last night (Sunday) was much better, though still a little bland. The remix version is, however, growing rather quickly on me, so we’ll see! Give it a few days, and a night out dancing to it, I’m sure that I’ll love this track!

(I won’t even go into her appearance last night, my initial thoughts were that it was terrible, but watching it back, I concede that it wasn’t too bad after all! I still maintain that she looked much better on the Saturday mentoring clips though!)

Alexandra Burke – Overcome

So, it’s Monday morning,  and without doubt, the highlight of my week is that Alexandra Burke’s debut album, ‘Overcome’ is out!

Very pleased that it was on Spotify first thing this morning!

Alexandra has done a lot of press for the album recently, and had a reported thirty songs that were being considered for the album. She has said in interviews that she wanted to do a double CD, though the record label wouldn’t hear of it due to it being her first!

I had a listen to the album whilst at work, so I made a few thought notes against each track, which I have shared below. I know many of the words that I have used aren’t real words, but they seemed appropriate when I was note-taking

NB – these are in order of how the ‘random’ function on Spotify played them, so are not in track listing order.

Bad Boys (feat. Flo Rida): Anthemic – and easily the song of the album (and my song of 2009 thus far!)

Overcome: Great, powerful ‘feel-good’ song. Potential single?

Bury Me (6 feet under): weird… but in a good way! Love the classic sound to it with the piano coming through!

All Night Long: dancy R’n'B song, catchy chorus – album track maybe, but also a club favourite?

They Don’t Know: Christina Aguilera/emo-esque clean vocal song… you long for her to belt, but, surprisingly, this never comes. Good track, unexpected style more than anything.

The Silence: Perhaps what I was expecting from ‘They Don’t Know’ – like, very much! Almost 80s power-ballad’y! Another potential single?

Good Night, Good Morning (feat. Ne-Yo): Another R’n'B track, no doubt will be released as a single due to collaboration with Ne-Yo. I like it, but it’s not really my taste… that said, this song is perfect for the number one spot of the UK charts given the tracks that tend to get top spot these days.

Gotta Go: Nice ballad track, album track in my opinion.

Dumb: punchy and great for dancing along in a club! ‘dumb dumb dumb’ *jigs*’ – infectious! Love it!!

You Broke My Heart: Adore those opening bars, a little Duffy-esque in vocal style, but with much needed attitude! Power tune if ever there was one, with some great chords thrown in for that ’sass’ factor! (I can’t listen to this without rolling my shoulders and wagging my fingers heh!)

Hallelujah (Bonus Track): Her version of this track speaks for itself really… what a set of lungs!

Broken Heels: Bouncy song, great to dance to at a party but an album track I think. My neck is sore from head-dancing heh! (NB – I’d suggest you listen to this track in private, otherwise your colleagues may look upon you and your head-dancing strangely!)

Nothing But The Girl: Different to the rest of the album, love how this builds up, a good pop record.

A frantic few months for Alexandra, but they have definitely paid off and, in my opinion,  resulted in what must be the pop album of the year!

Chris Rea

Bit of a surprise for some on the subject of my tastes in music – I am guilty of enjoying a bit of Chris Rea on a sunny evening!

Take tonight for instance, I’m currently typing this as the sun streams through the window, I’ve a nice cold drink to hand and I’m really looking forward to the summer.

Having such a raspy, warm voice, I find Chris Rea perfect music for evenings such as this, and have been a fan of his since I was around thirteen/fourteen.

I heard ‘The Road To Hell’ (the song) on an old record of my parents around about that time, and absolutely loved it – especially the fact that the song was in two parts. Although it’s a bit of a sell-out to say it, this remains my favourite of his songs and I can all too frequently be heard singing along to this at work hehe. I just can’t resist those opening chords…

Chris Rea – The Road To Hell [part II]

When I started to hunt out more of Chris Rea’s work, MusicZone was still around (now I feel VERY old) and they used to sell ‘old’ CD’s rather cheaply (for example, you could usually pick up a Queen CD for under a fiver!).

Surprisingly, I managed to pick up the ‘new’ Chris Rea album “The Road To Hell Part 2″ for a reasonably small amount, mainly because I really liked the midnight blue colour of the back cover and artwork of the front cover! Well, this was ten years ago… I think this is when my fascination with pretty things began hehe!

I especially liked the play between the cover of 1989’s The Road To Hell album, and the cover of 1999’s The Road To Hell Part 2 album…

However, I bought quite a lot that day, and so this didn’t get listened to until one day when I was off school and feeling rather sick. I was lying in bed, trying to get to sleep, and thought that I’d try listening to some music to see if that’d work. Perhaps not the best conditions to listen to music to – even to this day, I still associate feeling ill with this album! Weird!

That said, I would count this as one of my favourite albums of the ’90’s.

To me, the album, at the time, had such a funky almost 80’s-esque futuristic sound, whilst still staying true to how I considered his ’sound’ to be – for a time, I just couldn’t get enough of this CD.

Some of my favourite songs on this album are:

• New Times Square
• E
• Marvin
• Can’t Get Through
• Good Morning
• I’m In My Car
• Keep On Dancing

Remarkably, this album seems to have been perhaps one of his least successful – I cannot find a clip of any song from the album on YouTube and last.fm doesn’t have any music tracks from this album either.

I have read online that he was slated for the album with many people saying that Rea had lost his way, something that I can understand as this album is a little ‘clubby’ in parts (though it’s these bits that I especially like!). The album deliberately received practically no promotion, and didn’t even make it into the UK Top 40. Very little information about this album appears online it would seem… though to me, it still remains his best album!

That said, stores such as Amazon do still retail the album as new (in addition to listing resales), though most of the high street retailers, such as HMV, don’t even stock it on their websites any longer. Amazon resellers seem to do it quite cheaply, so for anyone interested, it’s definitely worth a punt in my opinion…!

My other favourite Chris Rea song is ‘Windy Town’, which comes from 1987’s Dancing With Strangers album (such a lovely name for an album I thought), which again came with some nice artwork.

So there you have it; I’m no longer a closet Chris Rea fan!

Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds

Fans and critics of this amazing and remarkable piece of music alike are currently celebrating the 30th Anniversary since it was first unleashed by Jeff Wayne in 1978.

Original - and awesome - album cover from 1978

A truly unclassifiable piece of work, which was accompanied by some astounding artwork – this really is one of my ‘must-have’ albums.

Co-incidentally, H.G. Wells’ innovative and spectacular novel puts the first Martian landing as occurring on Horsell Common (Woking, Surrey) at midnight on 12th August 1898; 110 years ago.

In celebration of this, Jeff Wayne and the official website for the album are set to release a special 30th Anniversary web page at midnight (currently showing the holding page) which amongst other things will set out the plans for a special tour next year (the past two have been amazing) as well as including a whole feast of other The War Of The World goodies.

I can’t wait for October when the new dates go on sale – this time, I am determined to go and watch this live!

The 2 Disc Special Edition DVD from 2006, and the still photos from 2007 make the production look amazing, and I hear that Jeff Wayne and co. are planning to put on an even better show this time round!

Above is a clip from The Eve Of War – perhaps the most known of the tracks from this album/musical adaptation.

Below is the DVD trailer which shows a little more of the tour, including the result of the marvelous reconstruction of Richard Burton so that they could revive him in his original role as the narrator.

For those unaware of the classic sci-fi story “The War Of The Worlds” (ignoring for a moment the terrible film adaptation, and it’s soon to be released sequel) I would suggest checking out the below pages:

The War of the Worlds (1898), by H. G. Wells, is an early science fiction novel which describes an invasion of England by aliens from Mars. It is one of the earliest and best-known depictions of an alien invasion of Earth, and has influenced many others, as well as spawning several films, radio dramas, comic book adaptations, and a television series based on the story. The 1938 radio broadcast caused public outcry against the episode, as many listeners believed that an actual Martian invasion was in progress, a notable example of mass hysteria.

[Quote from Wikipedia - the first link below]

• Wikipedia Page (H.G. Wells’ Novel)
• Wikipedia (Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds)
• Official site: Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds
• Youtube search for the live tour

Finally, to end, I thought I’d post the below fan video as I’ve not giggled so much at something in ages! P