JLS - JLS Review

Posted by Daniel Wilcox on 11.09.2009

Runners up on the UK's X Factor produce a record full of potential hits.



JLS - JLS
Review by Daniel Wilcox

Aston Merrygold – vocals
Marvin Humes – vocals
Jonathan Gill – vocals
Ortise Williams - vocals

Track listing:
1. Beat Again
2. Everybody in Love
3. Keep You
4. Crazy for You
5. Heal this Heartbreak
6. Close to You
7. Only Tonight
8. One Shot
9. Private
10. Don’t Go
11. Only Making Love
12. Kickstart
13. Tightrope

There’s a niche in the market that JLS is intent on filling. Boy bands were huge in the mid-nineties, for whatever reason. Many such boy bands have attempted to make a comeback in the latter half of the decade, and most have failed miserably (how’d that new Backstreet Boys album do?). JLS are essentially a boy band manufactured by a talent show, The X Factor, but their early success suggests that there is room for a boy band, albeit one that is much more suave and cool than the likes of *NSync, in the music industry. Undoubtedly these guys have a huge following in the UK despite not actually winning the X Factor last year, as is evident by their first two singles going straight to number one over here, with the album likely to do the same despite competition from Robbie Williams.

All of that would therefore suggest that these guys are able to put out some pretty decent sounding pop songs, right? Right. Don’t get me wrong, unless you’re female and under the age of about 21, it is never going to be cool or socially acceptable to like this kind of band. But take one listen to their first single, and album-opener “Beat Again” and tell me you’re not instantly hooked? Those choruses are just undeniably huge. The lyrics may be incredibly generic, “Let’s just get back together / We should have never broke up / They’re tellin’ me that my heart won’t beat again,” but the track as a whole is just too much fun to be written off immediately.

And for the most part, things just get bigger and better. Second single “Everybody in Love” is just as huge, a massive uplifting anthem that’ll have people with their hands up in clubs across the country. I think that with tracks like this, this band has potential to crack the United States as well. I’ve tried to resist this track in many a club, but when that chorus hits, “Everybody in love / Go on, put you hands up,” I’m right there with the rest of that club, with my hands up.

JLS is a record that is absolutely packed with potential hits, comparable to Rihanna’s Good Girl Gone Bad and Lady Gaga’s The Fame, in that any track from this record could do significantly well in charts around the world. There’s the upbeat numbers that have already dominated UK charts in recent months, but there are also a few pretty decent ballads on this record as well, notably “Close To You,” which shows that while they may be very much manufactured, the band has a couple of really good singers in there, Aston being the stand-out vocalist of the quartet.

This album is of course made for one thing, and that’s chart domination. So the fact that this record has already produced two huge hits and has the potential for more makes it a great success. Some of the tracks are just a little bit too sugary sweet, but for the most part they very much hit the spot. It may be the band’s image and Simon Cowell’s promotion that keeps them on top, but you have to give credit to the songwriters for making hits that’ll make a boy band work in 2009. A lot of mainstream pop is fairly nauseating, but I feel that you have to give credit where credit’s due when writers get in right, and this album as close to pop perfection as any boy band could get in the 21st century. I would be quite surprised if these guys didn’t make waves in the US in 2010.

Essential downloads: “Beat Again,” “Everybody in Love,” “Crazy For You,” “Close to You” and “Only Making Love.”

The 411: This album is a rare thing, an album, by a boy band, chockablock with future hits, big, hands-in-the-air pop and R&B choruses and cheesy ballads. It's the kind of record that a lot of people will frown upon, but when you consider it's only designed to churn out hits, you have to give it its props.

Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]