The problem with the apparently endless success of musical TV talent shows is it normalises them, validates them. Thus we end up with critical forums grading sonic diarrhoea rather than dismissing it all as banal overblown Brave New World kaka. Snobby and elitist? Sure, if that means I don't have to spend a second longer listening to best-selling platinum Welsh pop baritone Rhydian Roberts.
This isn't the place to assess the qualities that breed X Factor success. Suffice to say that what makes for flashy TV froth hasn't given us a single act worth passing mention. All right, Girls Aloud had their moments but that's it, whatever Will Young's apologists might say. Rhydian came second on The X Factor 2007 and has since sold hundreds of thousands of his two albums and recorded with Kiri Te Kanawa and Bryn Terfel. Now he brings us an album of Eighties-centric covers done in a style that combines light classical vocals with Mogadon Euro-pop.
If you want a good laugh rather than to be bored to tears, go straight to his version of The Mission's "Tower of Strength". It's so cartoonishly awful I could only giggle helplessly. In Rhydian's hands The Mission's cabaret Goth shtick blooms into something utterly lost, ridiculous and without purpose. He tackles songs by Blancmange and Black, and his version of Annie Lennox's "No More I Love Yous", already a song I'd leave a best friend's wedding to avoid, is akin to a satirical masterclass in po-faced emoting.
Waves is a truly dreadful album with nothing to recommend it - just like most of the material that results from these shows. Cut loose from their carefully rehearsed back stories and hokey karaoke showbiz, it's just a lot of broken cardboard scuzzing along pop's sidewalk, forgotten the moment it's passed. Oh, but did I mention Rhydian has a simply outrageous shock of blonde hair? I did? He's played for the royal family on several occasions, you know.
Find Waves on AmazonWatch the video for "Parade"
