Debut albums by Idols and Academics tend to be, by design as much as necessity, triumphs of production-line economics. And so we have the first effort by Scotland's Michelle McManus: a lovely, funny, irrepressible girl, a honeyed voice refreshingly free of Celine Dion-style ululating excesses, a non-standard body size that makes her victory sit a notch or two up the heartening-result ladder.
But even by mainstream pop standards, there's a stingy jobsworthiness at work here that sours what should have been sweet vindication. Surely even a girl who loves this type of wind-beneath-my-wings self-affirmation/love won-and-lost repertoire deserves better?
Perhaps svengali fatigue has set in. While it's manifestly in the interests of the paymasters running the show to see our 'Chelle do well, and for more than just this week, you wonder whether they're really trying. Michelle's vocals – dropped into boil-in-the-bag recordings slapped down and mixed up in the outsourced studios of Norway, Sweden, London and LA - are never less than nicely done, with a lovely hint of lump-throated vulnerability.
Rummaging for high points amongst the bargain-basement artwork and pureed-slush arrangements, you may notice "Feeling Good" has a faint bluesiness; "Say It Isn’t So" a buried sliver of flourishy guitar and "Invincible" a heart-tugging piano line. Still, there's a distinct sense that whoever compiled the material from the Cathy Dennis/Diane Warren/Gary Barlow/Desmond Child racks could have been doing this for anyone, anyone at all, and preferably by tea-time.
"Emotional" ("Sometimes I'm sad about everything/Sometimes I'm mad and break something") sounds like it was originally pinned to drawing-board plans for Avril Lavigne Mk. 47, and "Invincible" for some boy-band refugee's sincerity-ridden solo debut. Most disappointing of all, there’s not another track here that's a patch on the throaty, mock-gospel chorus charm, or the hit factor, of first single "All This Time".
It's as though, job done and not a second too soon, no one involved could be bothered to ask themselves whether they'd given our Michelle a second potential hit. Or cared. At least cruise singers, as a rule, get better covers.
