Press reviews: Hear'Say

Popstars: Mixed reviews

The national press review the new Hear'Say album, Popstars.

---

Daily Telegraph

As it is, of its kind, it's a rather decent record. The Scandinavian production and writing team bring in echoes of Jam and Lewis, a splash of Abba, even a touch of Prince, while the vocals are a treat.

Add the group's versions of Sunday, Sunday and Bridge Over Troubled Water, souvenirs of the series, and it's an attractive package, but now only of interest to a core demographic of pre-teens.

---

The Times

Pure and Simple is pretty poor...If all was fair in pop, the song would have stayed with Girl Thing, it's original owners. It would have peaked at No 13, thanks to a funky, faintly desperate performance on Top of the Pops, then sunk like a stone the next week.

As soon as the album ends, you'd still be hard pushed to remember how more than three of the songs sound. The real question is, how much do you care?

---

Ironic name for Hear'Say?

The Independent

You have to hand it to the Svengali committee that controls Hear'Say, cheekily giving their charges a band name suggesting the exact opposite of the process by which they actually achieved recognition; rubbing our noses in the artificiality of it all.

Popstars has always been less a musical endeavour than a self-fulfilling prophecy. Still, it's hard not to marvel at just how efficiently the pop sausage-machine can work when primed with enough pre-release promotion.

Because heaven knows, there's precious little musical interest to be found on the quintet's debut album.

---

The Guardian

The single Pure & Simple is already at number one with its sultry, All-Saints-meets-Oasis-in-Top-Shop charm, and rightly so. It's a great pop song and would have been a success regardless of who had recorded it (word has it that Posh Spice was lined up for the honour).

Unfortunately, it's entirely unreflective of the rest of the Popstars album.

While Pure & Simple is an up-to-date take on the classic Motown style, Hear'Say have looked to the days of Stock, Aitken and Waterman as inspiration for most of this debut.

Popstars couldn't be more indicative of the late 1980s if it came as a picture disc with Grolsch bottle-tops for your Doc Martens.