Ronan Keating is 23 years old. Since joining Boyzone in 1993 he has, amongst other things, performed on four number one albums, sixteen top three singles, co-managed Westlife to five number one singles and picked up an Ivor Novello award along the way.
Remarkable achievements in anybody's book for one of such tender years. Perhaps more remarkable, however, is how mature and grounded he appears to have remained throughout it all. Now, maturity of this calibre is a fine quality if, for example, one were planning on pursuing a career in the emergency services. It is not, however, an attribute that one looks for in your average pop star, and on the basis of his first solo outing this is undoubtedly where Keating runs into problems.
In trying to appeal to a more mature audience, which this album undoubtedly is, Keating has cribbed the most obvious musical motifs from a variety of eclectic styles and watered them down to such an extent that they cease to have any musical worth what so ever. As a result we are treated to the Celtic tinged ballad 'If You Love Me', the backing track to which sounds like the 'Irish Moods' demonstration button on a Casio keyboard, and the hackneyed fake gospel emotion involved in the less than stirring climax to the final track 'Once In A Lifetime'.
A cursory glance at Keating's collaborators gives a further indication of the limit to his musical ambitions. In recruiting the likes of The Bee Gees and Bryan Adams, who's cast off 'The Way You Make Me Feel' can be found here, this album was destined to be chock full of the type of tunes mobile disco DJ's will churn out 'for all those lovers out there' at family discos across the land. This is the kind of accusation that is levelled at Bryan Adams all the time. However, at least he had the good grace to turn forty before he started to inflict this dirge on us. Keating has no such excuse.
It is not all doom and gloom however. 'Life Is A Roller Coaster' the current single and opening track on the album, is undoubtedly the finest song that Ronan has ever been involved in. However this merely underlines the point that when, as in this case, he sings uptempo, unpretentious pop songs Ronan is often worth a listen. As soon as he begins to get all mature and world weary on us however, it is definitely time to reach for the ear plugs.
