Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 01/08/2005
Label: SonyBMG

Lee Ryan can sing, is not a gargoyle and, as an 'ambassador' to Dolce & Gabbana, has little to worry about in the wardrobe department. Assuming he can keep a reign on his Tourette's-like impulse to gob-off about issues he's ill-suited to opine about, his future as a solo artist seems assured, Blue's cultivated bad boy image ensuring a smooth transition.

The contents of his boringly eponymous debut (tabloids reported a last-minute brainwave to call it "Out Of The Blue" but evidently the in-house art department had already put away the Letraset) are more-Ronan-than-Robbie radio-friendly AOR. Lead single and opening track "Army of Lovers" you already know, all idiotic wordplay over the old "You never know when the nibbles will bite…" KP Nuts jingle. "Turn The Car Around" and "Jump" are both oddly American and non-descript, like the backing music from any number of imported teen dramas, while "When I Think of You" and "Real Love" are a little more R'n'Blue.

"Parking" takes us back to crooning country for a bit of backseat shagging (paging Stan Collymore!) before the uptempo Ronan clone "Wish The Whole World Knew", the first of seven tracks on the album Lee co-wrote. "Close To You", "How Do I?" and last track "In The Morning" are likeable enough, light-as-air Euroballads you could imagine Enrique Inglesias eeking out, "Miss My Everything" is a '70s soul smoocher and "Daydreamer" melds abstract guitar noodling to an "Angels"-esque downbeat shuffle. Job done.

It's all very mature and tasteful and cosmopolitan - obliterating all memories of the Loopy Lee of yore who stopped Blue from being just another bland band of pretty boys - and you can hear that serious money has been spent on it, rather than the label just hiring a bunch of hack musicians and programmers to pad out the background. Like James Blunt's marketing team, they've bought themselves a surefire hit album and surely the only thing that can mess things up for them now is Lee's big mouth. Watch this face...

    by Emma Morgan