Four Word Reviews: Dive InI thought it was finally over. The terrible CDs had finally run out, and if you’ve been paying attention you’ll have seen that it’s been a full year since we last paid a visit to the Four Word Review Auditorium. But no, it seems my luck ran out a little while ago when a jiffy bag dropped through the letterbox containing Dive In, the 2002 debut album from Popstars and Pop Idol star/idol Darius. Oh dear. Brace yourself, then: we’re going back in.
Four Word Reviews: The Christmas AlbumIt’s April, which means that rising sense of child-like excitement you feel is thanks to Christmas. Here in the Four Word Review lounge we like to crack out a Christmas album around this time of the year (see previous scrapes with Mahalia, Streisand, Bublé and Jewel); now, as the log crackles on the fire and the snow falls outside, it’s time to drop the needle on another. Unfortunately the only festive album I seem to have in store is this one: it’s “The Christmas Album” by the Tweenies.
Four Word Reviews: StrikeIt’s that time again. Time to slide another unwanted CD into the player and see what fate has in store. This time around we are meeting The Baseballs, who are presenting us with their debut album “Strike!” from 2009. I hadn’t heard of this album, or this band, before, but a look at it and a bit of cursory research suggested this Four Word Review wouldn’t be too bad. Some are painful, of course, and others are just a bit of fun. I was dismayed to find, however, that this was a genuinely unpleasant experience, and in this review I’ll be attempting to work out why.
Four Word Reviews: TubthumperWe’ve visited the nineties before, in our Four Word Reviewing Time Machine, and found it a strange place. Suggs was there, of course, which wasn’t so bad, but on other visits we were left traumatised by Clock and Vanilla Ice. So it was with some understandable trepidation that I opened the CD case for “Tubthumper” by Chumbawamba. Released in 1997, this might be the most nineties album ever made – the first single, Tubthumping, was a massive worldwide hit, but nowadays it doesn’t get the nostalgic airplay that, say, Oasis or the Spice Girls or Dee-Lite do. It belonged so much to its own era that it seems to have stayed there.
Four Word Reviews: JoyDo you know what it isn’t any more? It isn’t April. And that’s a shame, because April is traditionally the month in which we Four Word Review the heck out of a Christmas album (see Mahalia, Barbra Streisand, Michael Bublé), and right now I’ve got another Christmas album burning a hole in my CD collection. So let’s throw tradition to the wind and have a listen to Joy: A Holiday Collection by Jewel, even though it’s May and May is nowhere near as inherently Christmassy as April.
Four Word Reviews: Funky DoryYou know how, occasionally, something you’ve never experienced before is somehow just what you expected? That is how I felt when Rachel Stevens’ debut solo album, Funky Dory, went into my CD player. I more or less remembered the lead single, Sweet Dreams My LA Ex, but apart from that the main thing I knew is that it was a solo album from the best one out of S Club 7. Rachel Stevens evidently wanted to sound a bit more grown up now that she had thrown off the shackles of the other S Club 6, and it was 2003. Put those things together and you’ve got exactly what this sounds like.
Four Word Reviews: Freak of NatureYou remember Anastacia. She had that massive, powerful voice and a stage persona that was pitched on the borders between sexy and fierce. Her big worldwide smash hit was the super-catchy “I’m Out of Love”, which topped charts of every kind in 2000, including those unrelated to music. Knowing I’d be listening to this album, I’ve had “I’m Out of Love” stuck in my head for several days. It turns out that was from her first album and this is her second. It’s not on this album. It’s still stuck in my head, though.
Four Word Reviews: ChristmasSo, it turns out that tomorrow is the first day of May, and not as I had assumed another day in April. That means that this post is being thrown online in a hurry so that it counts towards my April beans and not my May beans.
Anyway, since it’s April, and since it’s Four Word Reviews time, tradition dictates that we must listen to a Christmas album. In Aprils gone by we have heard from Mahalia and Barbra Streisand. This year we’re going for the big one: Christmas, the 2011 album by Michael Bublé. It rewrote Christmas music as we know it – a solid album of Christmas classics, reworked by the smoothest sounding chart act since Sade stopped releasing new music. Now everyone comes along and releases a few slick Christmas cover versions every year. Especially Michael Ball.
