Back home --- Westlife --- 2007 (Sony BMG)
It starts off with another ballad, and indeed another cover, Michael Buble's “Home”, and is notable for this time having no writing credits for the remaining band members. This indeed seems to have been the case since McFadden's departure, and you would perhaps be forgiven for thinking this was because he was the main songwriter in the band, but Egan and Filan also wrote, as we have seen, on “World of our own”, so perhaps the change in label, with Sony taking over Cowell's BMG label, had something to do with it? Or perhaps not. Whatever, seems it would stay that way until their last album, with only Mark Feehily contributing to the one track on the penultimate album apart from that.
Another ballad follows, the second single, “Us against the world” sold well for them but did not go to number one, then the third single (what imagination, eh?) is a bit more uptempo and dancy, but “Something right” hasn't a lot about it, and it's not that surprising that it did badly for them. Pretty cringe-inducing is the next ballad, “I'm already there”, not released as a single but due to excessive downloads somehow made it into the singles charts... Nice orchestral arrangements, but it's tearjerking at its worst really. Still, it's better than “When I'm with you”, with its annoying handclap beat and yowling keyboards...
The almost acapella opening to “Have you ever” is interesting, but it quickly settles down into yet another piano ballad, with a certain feel of those old motown love songs from the seventies, and piano follows piano for “It's you”, which again sounds quite familiar. Where have I heard that tune before? Robbie Williams? “She's the one”? Yeah, that's it: almost ripped the piano melody off verbatim, guys. Nice bit of guitar for a change opening “Catch my breath”, and it actually gets a little harder as the song nears its end: this isn't too bad, at least it's different. Which is not something I can say about the throwaway dancer “The easy way”, whose title really says all you need to know about the song. Decent uppy brass all right. Some nice acoustic guitar in “I do” (yeah, another ballad) but mostly I amuse myself listening to how the two interchanging male vocals, talking essentially about marrying, almost seem to be talking to each other. Gay, or what?
Sorry guys, it's just so funny how that ends up sounding.
And I'm bored.
Oh well, two tracks left to go. I have to say, ballads apart --- and really they seem to form about eighty percent of Westlife's material, at least from what I've reviewed --- I'm finding very little to like about this boyband, whereas before I almost warmed to the likes of Take That and even Boyzone, but these guys just seem so plastic. Haven't heard such an obvious case of “staying in it for the money” since Nsync. Anyway, “Pictures in my head” is a little better than I had expected, a sort of uptempo ballad with a slight rocky edge, then the album closes on “You must have had a broken heart”, another basic ballad. Yeah, nothing's leaping out at me as a sudden change or improvement, on the same lines as Take That's “Beautiful world” or Boyzone's “Brother”. Still don't like these guys.
TRACKLISTING
1. Home
2. Us against the world
3. Something right
4. I'm already there
5. When I'm with you
6. Have you ever
7. It's you
8. Catch my breath
9. The easy way
10. I do
11. Pictures in my head
12. You must have had a broken heart
Another album followed in 2009, which would prove to be their penultimate one. Now I had originally intended to pass over this and finish this section with a review of their final album, which you would think would make sense. However, after having read what Shane Filan said about it prior to its release, I'm going to change my mind and give this one a chance. Could it be their “Beautiful world” or “Brother”? According to Filan, there was “more tempo, more rocky songs, some more American songs, some darker songs .... with darker lyrics.” Okay, well, I'll believe it when I hear it, but I think in fairness I should at least check the album out and see if their claims turned out to be well founded.
So, this is the final Westlife album I'll be reviewing (thank god!) and it's the one before their final release. It's notable due to having no input or involvement whatever by their two longtime songwriters and producers, Steve Mac and Wayne Hector, but it also contains no efforts by the band, other than one co-writing credit for Mark Feehily on the last-but-one track.
Where we are --- Westlife --- 2009 (Sony)
(Note: I have tried several ways to get the image of the album cover to show up, but despite using several sources it refuses to, so I can't do anything about it here. I'm sure you're all devastated...)
After taking a year-long break following their eighth album, “Back home”, and following a sold-out event in Croke Park, Dublin, labelled “Ten years of Westlife”, the boys were back with their new and long-awaited album. Interesting to see the first track, and the first single, is Daughtry's “What about now”, itself written by two of the members of Evanescence. So is this the new, rockier, maybe darker tone that Filan was talking about prior to the album's release? Okay, it's a serious change from their soppy piano ballads and their classical-guitar lounge songs, but then again it's a cover, and I know this song, so what have Westlife got to show us that they can say, like the kid at the end of the “X-Files”, I made this?
Well, “How to break a heart” is a quick step back to familiar territory, almost as if their brief foray into the world of rock has shaken them, and they need to reacclimitise themselves, tugging the security blanket back around their shoulders, then “Leaving” has a lovely strings arrangement, so much so that I almost expect Josh Groban to start singing, but it's a big swaying powerful ballad with a lot of emotion, while “Shadows” is more of the old piano ballad material but with a big dramatic production, some nice strings but let's be honest: Westlife ain't reinventing the wheel here, and much of this can be found on any of their other albums. I don't see any huge change in direction, any major shift in format and the opener apart --- which as I say is a cover anyway --- I see no “rocky” material.
Another nice ballad in “Talk me down” and a somewhat harder one with some nice AOR style keys for the title track, nice production and “The difference” is the closest they come to the likes of “Pictures in my head” from the previous album, which was the first non-ballad to catch my interest. There's a general sense of a harder sort of pop here, but I think it would be stretching it to call it rock, even soft rock. It rattles along nicely though and it's catchy, but then, what else would you expect from a Westlife song?
More ballads with “As love is my witness” and “Another world”, which perhaps should be named either “The same world” or “Another ballad”: I am rather amazed, given what Shane Filan promised before the album's release, at how similar this sounds to any of the other three Westlife albums I've reviewed --- okay, suffered through. I was expecting at least some change, some shift, some attempt to pull away from the polished, by-the-numbers formulaic pop they had by now peddled for over ten years, but no, it seems this is just another year, another Westlife album, and the boys no doubt watched the euros pile up with little interest in stretching themselves or exploring new musical avenues. Hey, I suppose it's what the fans wanted, but if that's all it was, why go on about how “different” the album was supposed to be?
I would love to tell you that the next track is a cover of the Strangler's punk hit, but the tinkling piano and deep, emotional vocal as “No more heroes” begins dashes any such hopes, if they were ever really recognised or expected. Yep, another powerful ballad, and Westlife continue to stick to what they know, what they're good at (and it has to be admitted, they
are good at it) and what sells. Yawn. Someone wake me up when this is over, yeah?
Okay, “Sound of a broken heart”, while still essentially a ballad, does up the tempo a little, and there are some nice keyboards in it, decent strings but it's sort of like a ballad trying to be something else, and it falls between two stools, one of which I'm nodding off on. All right, that's unfair: it's probably one of the better tracks on the album. Happy? Moving on... The album is trying to finish strongly, with “Reach out” a decent half-rocker with some good keys and guitar, but we end on yet another ballad, which to be fair is quite nice, but then there's little to distinguish “I'll see you again” from a dozen other Westlife ballads.
As an album that was supposed to surprise and change people's minds about Westlife, and appeal to other than just their fans, this album fails miserably on every count. That's not to say it's a bad album: it's well written (though not by them), well played and well sung, and you can't fault the production, but it comes across as just another stepping-stone on the path, another brick in the wall of bland, faceless pop music that Westlife not only purveyed, but came to typify in the nineties and early part of the twenty-first century. A decent album, but nothing new. If you are a Westlife fan, you bought this album and loved it. If you were not, you were unlikely to shell out on it. If you did, then you were, in all likelihood, disappointed.
TRACKLISTING
1. What about now
2. How to break a heart
3. Leaving
4. Shadows
5. Talk me down
6. Where we are
7. The difference
8. As love is my witness
9. Another world
10. No more heroes
11. Sound of a broken heart
12. Reach out
13. I'll see you again
Westlife's final proper album was released a year later, but the relationship between the band and Simon Cowell was beginning to reach breaking point. Originally their mentor and supporter (not surprising as he was getting very rich off the backs of these young guys --- oh where have I heard that before?), Cowell began devoting more time to his involvement in the reality search-for-a-star TV shows “American Idol” and “The X Factor”, and Westlife felt they ended up just being fit in around the edges, when he had time, being treated like some sort of side project: interesting, but not important, or at least, not as important as his other work.
This led to their eventual split with his label in 2011, after which things were more or less over for the band. They recorded one final album, with RCA, a greatest hits package and then in October announced they were calling it a day. Cue screaming, tearstained teenagers all over Ireland (and the world) as hysteria over the band's breakup reached insane levels, some fans even calling the date they split “The day the music died”, which I have to admit makes me grin ruefully; as if Westlife ever contributed anything specific or unique to music, and as if music would not continue without them. Oh dear.
At any rate, their farewell concert earlier this year sold out in five minutes, and although the split was initially described by the band as amicable, it emerged afterwards that there had been a lot of in-fighting and bad blood in the final years, which really is probably only natural: you spend ten years together with four or five other guys, you'll be lucky not to come to blows. Or harsh words at the very least. They declared they will never reform, but then, we've heard that before, so I wouldn't be too surprised were it to happen down the line. Suppose it depends on how well, or not, the solo career of each turns out to be.
Of all the boybands I've looked into so far in this series, I have to say that most of them ended up impressing me in one way or another, except Nsync, who I thought were just totally a corporate music/money machine. But Westlife just leave me totally cold. They seem to have made no attempt, over their fourteen years together, to develop or change their musical style, they seem to have been happy to sing cover version after cover version, and in the end the only real legacy they leave is a fistful of sugary, one-dimensional ballads that could really have been sung by any boyband. Far from being one of the most influential boybands in history, I found them to be dull, flat, lifeless and lacking in any spark whatever.
It's not like I expected anything else, but as already related some of the boybands have managed to surprise me over the course of this journey. As I walk up the gangplank and consider my, ahem, final destination, I look back at West Landing and wonder just how many impressionable teenage girls helped pay for the purchase of this island? Ah well, that's boybands for you. And what of the future of this crass music form? What of the new young guns, the successors to the throne of bland, formation dancing and close-harmony singing generic pop? Who are the girls screaming for now, with Westlife already forgotten and just a page in their scrapbook they probably don't even look at now?
We're off to find out.