Humble,
self-deprecating, likeable: Simon Cowell can appear to be none of these
things, and yet last Christmas his televisual fungus produced a
genuinely popular, modest winner. X Factor lovers and haters alike agree
that Matt Cardle has a decent voice and inoffensive demeanour.
Optimists may have hoped he’d spend 2011 recording an album of musical
merit and even some emotion, a welcome change from the processed
dance-pop or saccharine ballads which generally emerge from such
coddled, cosseted ‘champions’. Sadly, Letters is over-produced to a
point where what distinguished Cardle from the Cheryl clones and cheeky
boys is lost. Amid a barrage of formulaically chugging soft-rock
structures and overwhelming strings, the poor chap struggles to be
present. Boy does he struggle. You can just about discern him straining
every vocal cord to display ‘real’ passion, but he’s swamped in what the
industry thinks of as ‘epic’ studio mannerisms. Almost every verse
builds ‘perfectly’ like a Take That song; every chorus enters with the
big crashing guitars of a Snow Patrol anthem or the heft of a hired
orchestra....
Letters - iTunes LP
Letters - iTunes LP
01. Starlight
02. Run For Your Life
03. All For Nothing
04. Pull Me Under
05. Amazing
06. Faithless
07. Beat Of A Breaking Heart
08. Stars & Lovers
09. Letters
10. Reflections
11. Walking On Water
12. Slowly
13. When We Collide
14 For You (Acoustic Version)
15 Letters (Acoustic Version)
16 Amazing (Acoustic Version)
17 Slowly (Acoustic Version)
18 Walking On Water (Acoustic Version)
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