Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 28/11/05
Label: SonyBMG

The best "plus friends" albums (e.g. Frank Sinatra's, Tony Bennett's, and that Tom Jones one a few years back) manage to create an ambience akin to a hedonistic Cecil Beatonesque party round at the host's crib, at which the A-list carouse round the piano while the rest of us press our noses up against the sash windows.

In the case of G4, though, the scene is rather different. We're in a West Acton semi. There's Robin Gibb, nursing a warm glass of perry in the corner. Cliff Richard swaps Wimbledon anecdotes with Lesley Garrett on the sofa. That's it. It's pitiful: no disrespect to the estimable Doncaster diva but even Gary Glitter could come up with a bigger list. That's the thing with "plus friends" albums. You do need some friends. Someone should have told the "X Factor" runners-up that their invisible childhood ones don't count.

Nonetheless, the coiffed faux-classical singing quartet - and rival Fisherman's Friend gobblers Il Divo - will mop up a sizeable volume of this Christmas's high street cash. So should you make room for the girly-sounding foursome and their three chums in your home? Well, let's see - "highlights" include a cover of Queen's "Barcelona", with the aforementioned Garrett on Montserrat Caballe duty. A deliberately overblown and hammy delight in its original form, you'll agree, but here treated with far too much tippy-toed respect by Jon, Ben, Matt and Mike.

Coldplay's "Yellow" is up next - every note needlessly embellished by four men who must know there's no point trying to fake sincere, so may as well sound as cheesy as possible, and all delivered just as Louis Walsh will have instructed: with an American accent, a smile, and a cute tilt of the head. (NB: a girls choir on EMI have just covered "Fix You" - is Chris Martin the new Charles Wesley?) Poorest choice of song on the album, however, is Christina Aquilera's "Beautiful", which sounds like four slightly hysterical sixth form girls doing a turn in the end-of-term Christmas assembly.

Mercifully, the 'proper' opera tracks are restricted to two: Verdi's "La Donna E Mobile", from "Rigoletto" won't win them many fans in Covent Garden, while so blatantly cursory is their approach to the classics they can't be bothered to even spell correctly Bizet's not-exactly-obscure "Au Fond Du Temple Saint" on the sleeve and lyric sheet.

Poor show all round.

    by Anna Britten