| Music Review of the boyband BLUE Okay, usually I�d at least put the name of the single or the name of the album as the heading, so at least you all would have a better idea what I�m talking about. In this case, I cannot. Because to actually go and find out the name of their album is to devote much too much energy to something so worthless. It�s kind of like sitting on your couch with a cup of tea watching TV, and then deciding to walk to your fridge to check what the colour of the milk carton is. No one ever needs to have that kind of information to save one�s life, and it�s just a gloriously wasteful expenditure of energy to find out something which is so lame. And stupid analogy aside, you�re letting your tea turn cold and Ross might have proposed to Rachel in the minute that it took you to check the milk carton. In other words, not worth the effort. Also, I cannot talk about the single because I do not care to remember what their latest one is called � too many words in the title � and I also want to talk about their other �efforts� to date. The clueless among you will have to get the bullet on this. Blue is the name of the latest boyband from the UK to rise out of the ashes of Take That. The only way they differentiate themselves from boybands like Take That, Five, Boyzone, Backstreet Boys and �N Sync is that they have four members instead of five. Much like the Spice Girls, after that fifth one left. So there. They have had a string of hits this year. They have released three singles so far � the latter two both got to #1 while the first one was in the chart for months, and that�s months too many already. Another way that you can differentiate this boyband from the hundred others is the fact that each and every member of the boyband (I will not dignify them by calling them a �band�) is in desperate need of some facial readjustment. In the several seconds that I have glanced at their singles or album in the music store (damn, those seconds of my life gone forever), or worse, sat through their videos, I�ve noticed that each and every one of them has this very telling facial flaw which makes me wonder if just scarring myself or having a crooked nose will make girls scream my name. Maybe it says something about the taste of pre-pubescent and teen Brits. Once again, I cannot give you an example because I have chosen to forget these flaws (I dunno, a head that�s too big, cheekbones that remind me of robots?) for the sake of my sanity. You can undoubtedly go to Yahoo! and search for their website to check it out for yourself. I will not supply the link. Anyhow, since boybands are ALL about the music, let�s get down to that, shall we? Once again, I do not claim to be a music critic and just speak as a member of the tortured audience. Their first single was entitled �All Rise�, no doubt a tribute to bakers all over the world, whom Blue were hoping will sing the song as their bread and cakes bake away in the oven. Somehow, for a strange reason known only to the baking profession, this ruse worked, and the single was a Top 5 hit. It then stayed on the charts for the longest time, because we all need to have fresh loaves of bread everyday. I would analyse the lyrics for you if I have them, but I don�t. Rest assured that I have heard it before, and marvelled how on earth these boyband songs never sound alike and never sound tired. That was sarcasm, by the way. Blue then tried to differentiate themselves even further by trying their hands (and surprisingly, not their vocals) at some R&B-infused pop, whatever that means. They then came up with �Too Close�, their second effort. The only problem was that this was a total and complete rip-off of a song that the US R&B group Next did some years back. Only no one in the UK ever heard it (the only Next they know here is the clothing chain), so they could go on to sing it worse than Next did (which wasn�t good in the first place) and somehow muster up a #1. Cue their fake shock. �Oh my, we never expected that we�d get to #1. We�d like to thank our fans.� Hey, you guys, how about thanking Next? No, they�d better not, because people might get in on it, and realise not only that they sang it word for word, melody for melody, but that the effect turned out worse. A couple of weeks back, the third single was unleashed to screaming fans, many of whom no doubt queued overnight in the cold. I do not know the name of this single because the title is too long, but it is a variant of �Come Back To My Life� or �If You Come Back To Me� or some atrociously generic thing like that. A couple of nights ago, I was in the state of drifting into sleep, where I was alert enough to register that it was the darn �Come Back To Me� song but not strong enough to switch off the darn Walkman. I�m weak like that and the radio stations have this conspiracy against me. Unsurprisingly, the lyrics are generically about crossing the hottest deserts for you, climbing the highest mountains for you, swimming the deepest oceans for you and other fantastical verbal assuaging. Hey, I could do that too, technically. It�s called an aeroplane, and not many people are taking them nowadays. Anyhow, this single got to #1 as well, and so Blue have become one of the most successful boybands in recent years. If you�re wondering if I�m singling them out simply because they are a boyband, well, that�s not really far from the truth. I hold boybands in contempt, though I shall confess to liking certain songs. Except that I have yet to find anything redeeming about this latest cookie-cutter boyband. None of their songs are good, but none are particularly horrific either, and considering I cannot even recognise them if they were to, say, walk past me on my way to lectures, none of their antics are thus particularly irritating. They are just � bland. And I�ve devoted much too much energy to them already. R.D.'s Rating : Blue bring blandness to a brand new baseline. And we've got more than enough boybands to last 50 dawg-years. This one is a DEAD DAWG, and dead on arrival at that. I'm not blue for the loss, that's for sure. (What's a 'dead dawg'? Check out R.D.'s rating system here.) |