Will Young Album: “Long and Winding Road”

As the third single for Will and Gareth, and their first, and hopefully only duet, the A-side does little to showcase either Will or Gareth's talents. It is a bland and boring cover of a song originally done by the greatest band of all time, and Will and Gareth are obviously not too fond of it themselves as they have made a boring video and not bothered to promoted it.

The second song, Suspicious Minds, is a classic by the King - but Gareth's vocals are weak and thin. He has done himself no favours by doing blatant imitations of Elvis in his performances, which serve only to highlight the fact that he cannot live up to the standards Elvis set . It was ill-advised for Gareth to cover this song - he should stick to what he is good at, and forget trying to become a legend.

But the third song, I Get the Sweetest Feeling, saves the whole record and brings it up to 3 stars. Will sings a soul song with relative ease and demonstrates impressive vocals. Unlike Gareth, he does the song justice, and does not try to imitate the original singer - instead, he really makes it his own.

This is going back a few years now, but the memory of this number one(!) travesty still haunts The Curmudgeon. Take two pop idol drones - the winner, and the other one (that the record company wanted to win) and pair them up. Fresh from Will Young's number one cover of a Westlife song, and fresh from Gareth Gates number one cover of the Righteous Brothers song (notice a trend here?) they were paired off, in much the same way as dog owners would mate their respective pooches. Well, it's easy money, isn't it? Especially if you cover a Beatles song. And just to make it even more bankable, get the cute one (that's, you know, not gay or anything like that) to sing an Elvis song. Ker-ching. Instant number one thanks to the pondlife that buy these horrible things.

And, oh mercy, is it ever horrible. Quite simply one of the worst cover versions of all time, what is surprising about The Long And Winding Road is the poe-faced sincerity of it all, and the record labels attempt to trick the listener into thinking this is something special, when in reality it's two whiney puppets slowly beating a classic song to death, all the while thinking their pained, touching vocals add anything to the song, when in fact it makes it more boring than, well, watching Pop Idol.

As for the double A-side cover of Suspicious Minds? Close your eyes, think of someone who doesn't actually like the song but is being told to sing it - THERE. That's what it sounds like.

A deeply woeful single and, in a long, long list of reality television spawned atrocities, this ranks up there as one of the very worst.

(...)

First of all, let me set you straight. The Beatles were the greatest band ever, and Elvis is still the king. But look out for Gareth and Will! Will has the stronger and more unique of their voices, but Gareth is more of the total performer. I really like both songs, and Will's cover version is also wonderful. Kepp up the good work, but please no more cover versions. i get that Pop idol is great and whatnot, but the y need to prove their individuality but performing songs that have been written for them or that they've written. Any way, as Siskel and Ebert would say, "Two thumbs up!"