Lopez Blogs

ALERT! ALERT! This post (despite what the misleading title might indicate) is not about Shayne Ward. Mercifully people are still writing about lovely Shayne, and you can catch a recent post over at PopMusicNotes. No, this post is about chose-celebrity-big-brother-but-should've-done-Dancing-On-Ice contestant Ben Adams, formerly of ace if somewhat schizophrenic boyband A1, who could use his raised profile to become the next Shayne Ward. Only Ben was Shayne Ward before Shayne Ward was Shayne Ward! Let me explain - at the turn of the century, Ben Adams was one quarter of A1 along with the quite delightful Christian, the dirty looking one (Paul) and the other one (Mark). Their first album was a frothy milkshake of uptempo pop such as Summertime Of Our Loves and First To Believe. They slicked it up for album number two with a more swedish sounding vibe in tunes like the still amazing to this day Same Old Brand New You (see Ben perform it on Celeb BB here!) and the choreographed to within an inch of their lives No More. Finally, album number three saw them pioneer the way for acts like McFly and Busted with a more organic, acoustic sound heavy on guitar, harmony and melody in tracks like Make It Good and Caught In The Middle. Sadly as the great pop bubble of 1998-2002 burst, A1 were no more and left without even a decent greatest hits to wrap up their time together...

SOLO BEN: While Christian returned to his native Norway and made albums that were possibly the most natural progression of the Make It Good A1 sound (read my reviews here), Ben started work on becoming the biggest solo boyband star since Robbie Williams. Unfortunately he ended up with a Duncan James sized pop career ie, none at all. And this really is a little bit of a crime against music. Ben had an arsenal of tunes that ranged from r'n'b-tinged through to guitar led acoustic ballads to jazz inflected pop tunes and everything in between. He practically laid out the template for Shayne Ward's underrated Breathless album with his debut single Sorry (see vid at top of page). This is one single that should have made no apologies - it was a straight up down and dirty pop tune that mixed hints of funk with a persistent beat and a great vocal from a slimmed down Ben. When the song was released in May 2005 (7 months before Shayne won X Factor), I was not only hooked to the high calibre a-side but the quite brilliant tracks that littered the cd singles. I'm Gone is a gorgeous ballad, while the real highlight is the quite filthy Delicious. An updated version of Martika's Kitchen, it even very possibly outfilths Candy Coated Chaos' more recent suggestive Treat. It's part prince, part club thumper with the classic line "i'd like to watch you masticate". Literally jawdropping pop at work, and this wasn't even going to be on the album!

Sadly the Ben solo album was not forthcoming. A #13 peak for Sorry stiffed any chance he had of making it big, and a much downloaded album sampler was all that fans had to console themselves with. And that's quite the pity. Even now, with a bit of spit and polish, those tracks could make Ben, and a properly promoted Shayne Ward (ie, not abandoned after two singles per album) the leading british solo male popstars. Second single to be (I Don't Wanna Say, above) was more representative of the A1 sound that played out the group's career, but that didn't mean Ben was playing it safe with the rest of the album. Often quoted in interviews as saying that he feels pop gets a bad reputation as not being able to embrace new ideas, he crams musical styles, lyrical depth, quirky asides and tempo changes into this selection of songs, often all within a verse and chorus. He teamed up with Har Mar Superstar for the sleazy future dance anthem Get Off My Girl which chronicles the dirtier side of a night out with the cherubic looking Mr Adams, yet slides effortlessly into (oh i do love a boy who slides effortlessly in) emotive ballads on the leaked demo Broken Bird. Surely this is a new opportunity for Ben to return with a bang and showcase his must hear music to a more willing world once again???

LINKS:

• Ben's official home page (including songs from his album on the music page!)
• Poster girl's almost undying love :P
• Apparently i interviewed him once!